The state of California filed a lawsuit Monday against oil giant ExxonMobil for its role in creating millions of tons of plastic that pollute the land, water, and human bodies—all while promoting the idea that most consumer plastics are recyclable, something that’s simply not true. A statement from California Attorney General Rob Bonta on Sunday alleged that ExxonMobil has been “deceiving Californians for half a century” by using “misleading public statements and slick marketing” that promised recycling would be able to address the enormous amount of plastic waste in the world produced by ExxonMobil’s polymers. It’s only in the past decade that the public learned much of the plastic placed in recycling bins around the world never actually gets recycled.
Sometimes the plastic is shipped overseas to places like Southeast Asia, while other times it’s just sent to a landfill. China, which used to be one of the world’s most popular dumping grounds for plastic waste, stopped taking imports of the plastic for “ recycling ” back in 2018. Only about 5% of plastic waste in the U.
S. actually gets recycled, according to the latest studies. The new lawsuit was filed in San Francisco County Superior Court on Monday by the Attorney General, who’s taken aim in recent years at the single-use plastics that are virtually impossible to recycle.
Single-use plastics include plastic packaging, plastic bags, plastic straws, and disposable utensils, among a host of others. B.