California attorney general sues Exxon Mobil over plastics recycling deceptions

SACRAMENTO, California — California Attorney General Rob Bonta accused Exxon Mobil in a lawsuit filed today of misleading the public about the environmental consequences of plastic production for decades, his office said in a news release.

The first-of-its-kind civil suit targets the world’s largest producer of chemical compounds that go into making plastic. Bonta, a Democrat, is seeking damages that he alleged were a result of Exxon’s promotion of single-use plastics.

“Today’s lawsuit shows the fullest picture to date of Exxon Mobil’s decades-long deception, and we are asking the court to hold Exxon Mobil fully accountable,” Bonta said in a statement.

Exxon couldn’t immediately be reached for comment.

The suit in San Francisco County Superior Court, which comes a year after Bonta sued Exxon and four other oil majors seeking compensation for climate change damages, reflects California’s increasingly aggressive effort to hold the industry accountable for climate harms as the state transitions from fossil fuels to renewables.

The lawsuit accuses Exxon Mobil of violating state nuisance, natural resources, water pollution, false advertising and unfair competition laws, according to the release. It seeks an injunction against “further pollution, impairment, and destruction, as well as to prevent Exxon Mobil from making any further false or misleading statements about plastics recycling and its plastics operations.”

Bonta, who’s mulling a run for California governor in 2026, announced he was investigating oil and petrochemical companies’ recycling claims in April 2022 and highlighted Exxon Mobil in particular at the time.

His office has laid out a history accusing the industry of promoting recycling to fend off curbs on its plastics production business going back to the 1970s, when companies circulated internal warnings about the feasibility of plastics recycling but promoted it to the public.

A campaign by the companies in the 1980s helped deter state legislatures and local governments from pursuing restrictions or bans on plastic, Bonta’s office has said.

Plastics production has instead grown to 300 million tons per year, while less than 9 percent of it is recycled, according to an Association of Plastic Recyclers analysis from 2022.

The suit says the misleading claims continue today with Exxon Mobil’s promotion of “advanced recycling” techniques that use heat to break down plastic waste. But very little of the plastic waste used in the process becomes recycled plastic, according to the news release, which calls it “a public relations stunt meant to encourage the public to keep purchasing single-use plastics.”