California sues Exxon because of ‘plastic recycling myth’

It’s apparently Exxon’s fault that Californians have to sort their paper, plastic and glass. California’s attorney general maintains that the company has “been deceiving the public to convince us that plastic recycling could solve the plastic waste and pollution crisis.”

The press release for the complaint reads:

For decades, ExxonMobil, one of the most powerful companies in the world, falsely promoted all plastic as recyclable, when in fact the vast majority of plastic products are not and likely cannot be recycled, either technically or economically. This caused consumers to purchase and use more single-use plastic than they otherwise would have due to the company’s misleading public statements and advertising…

Consumers are led to believe that items with [the chasing arrow symbol] can and will be recycled when placed in the recycling stream. In reality, only about 5 percent of U.S. plastic waste is recycled, and the recycling rate has never exceeded 9 percent. 

The complaint recognizes that plastics recycling is possible but often uneconomical, since it costs more than producing plastic from scratch. The state set up a mandatory recycling program in 1989. banned single-use plastic bags in grocery stores in 2014, and plastic straws in 2018. Consumers then believe that all plastics that are recyclable end up actually being recycled and are thus misled into using more plastics than otherwise. Belief in plastics recycling as a solution then preempted “regulatory solutions” such as banning disposable plastics in the first place.

California’s own plastics bans are to blame. Several studies actually show that plastic bag bans leads to increased plastic use in California and New Jersey. I wrote about this issue for the Independent Women’s Forum in February:

The researchers from the Frontier Group, Environment America Research & Policy Center, and the CALPIRG Education Fund, conclude that “Plastic Bag Bans Work.” Certainly, the number of plastic bags used in Alameda County, California, “dropped by more than 90%,” per shopping trip after its 2013 bag ban went into effect. That could mean fewer bags littering interstates, waterways, and beaches.

But after adjusting for population changes, the tonnage of discarded bags “rose from 4.08 per 1,000 people in 2014 to 5.89 per 1,000 people in 2022.” How can this be?

Consumers often substitute for “reusable” plastic bags, about four times as thick as “single-use,” plastic bags, and treat them like single-use bags anyway. The study concludes that policymakers should “eliminate harmful loopholes,” and prohibit sales of plastic bags of any thickness at checkout, while requiring fees for single-use paper bags. 

California’s latest lawsuit against Exxon is reminiscent of Kamala Harris’ “lawsuit” (though no suit was filed) into the company in 2016, while she was California attorney general. That investigation promised to discover whether Exxon had broken any laws to mislead the public over the risks of climate change.