Authorities in the US state of California announced on Monday that they were suing oil group ExxonMobil over its role in plastic pollution, accusing it of running decades of “misleading” advertising campaigns.

“For decades ExxonMobil has misled the public trying to convince us that the plastic recycling can solve both the waste problem and plastic pollution, when the company knows full well that is impossible,” said Rob Bonda, California’s attorney general.

“Our coasts, our oceans, our rivers and our bays are full of plastic, a pollution that costs authorities and taxpayers more than a billion dollars a year (…) At the same time, last year alone ExxonMobil had profits of 36 billion . dollars,” he added.

“Plastics are everywhere, at the bottom of our oceans, on the highest peaks (of mountains) and in our bodies, causing irreversible damage – known and hitherto unknown – to our environment and our health,” the California attorney general complained.

In its appeal, the state of California seeks “billions of dollars” by ExxonMobil in order for the state to implement “solutions” to deal with the contamination of water and soil from plastics that are discarded in the environment, but also to “re-educate” the citizens, he explained during a press conference.

How it misled consumers

The appeals against major oil companies, but also other companies accused of “green wash(greenwashing), are increasing worldwide and in the US. The aim is to hold them accountable as global warming, which is due to the concentration of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, is mainly linked to fossil fuels.

“Only 5% of plastic waste is recycled in the US, and that percentage has never exceeded 9%,” Bonda pointed out.

However, ExxonMobil used the icon that characterizes products that are recycledin order to make consumers believe that their plastic waste will be recycled, despite the fact that “the technology to do so does not yet exist or is not considered profitable enough to be implemented,” the attorney general explained.

Also recently, the appeal continues, the oil company began promoting the term “advanced recycling”to describe the chemical process used to melt plastic to create various petrochemical products. However 92% of the plastic subjected to this process is used for fuel.

The company’s response

“California officials have known for decades that their recycling system is inefficient. They failed to act and now seek to shift the blame to others,” ExxonMobil responded.

“Instead of dragging us to court, they could work with us to solve the problem,” ExxonMobil pointed out. “The first stage would be for them to recognize (…) that advanced recycling works (…) We provide real solutions,” he stressed, noting that so far he has turned more than 27,000 tons of plastic waste into reusable materials.

The most important legal action against the plastics industry

The lawsuit was filed in San Francisco about two years after the investigation into the responsibilities of the petrochemical industry in plastic pollution in the US, the world’s largest consumer of plastics per capita, which produces about a fifth of the world’s plastic waste .

“This legal action is the most important yet against the plastics industry and its persistent and ongoing lies about recycling,” said Judith Enck, president of the non-governmental organization Beyond Plastic, hoping it would set a “precedent” which “others will follow”.