California sues ExxonMobil for lying about recycling efficiency

California Attorney General Rob Bonta sued ExxonMobil Monday, accusing the oil giant of a “decades-long campaign of deception” about the efficiency of plastic recycling.

Bonta filed the lawsuit Monday in San Francisco County Superior Court, alleging that ExxonMobil “has deceived Californians for half a century through misleading public statements and clever marketing, promising that recycling would address ExxonMobil’s ever-increasing amount of plastic waste. (XOM) produce.”

AG Seeks Abatement Fund, Spillover and Civil Penalties for Damages Caused by Plastic Pollution It Says ExxonMobil caused. The civil suit is the first of its kind against a company that many consider a key factor behind it climate change.

Bonta said ExxonMobil lied in an attempt to “convince us that recycling plastic could solve the plastic waste and pollution crisis when they clearly knew it was not possible. “

ExxonMobil, which is the largest investor-owned oil company in the world, is also the largest producer of polymers used in single-use plastics. Bonta says the company has falsely promoted all plastic as recyclable when this is far from the case.

“This has led consumers to buy and use more single-use plastic than they otherwise would have because of the company’s misleading public statements and advertising,” the AG’s office said in a news release. Bonta cited a 12-page editorial published by ExxonMobil in Time Magazine in 1989 about the “urgent need to recycle.”

To date, only 5% of US plastic is recycled.

The news comes as California Governor Gavin Newsom signed a bill on Sunday banning all plastic shopping bags.

ExxonMobil did not immediately return a request for comment.