The state seeks funding for programs to clean up the environment
of ConsumerAffairsYou might think of ExxonMobilas an oil company but it's also the world's largest manufacturer of the building blocks plastics. And that has drawn the ire ofCalifornia Attorney General Rob Bonta, who is suing the company for allegedly deceiving the public about plastic pollution.
Plastics are everywhere, from the deepest parts of our oceans, the highest peaks on earth, and even in our bodies, causing irreversible damagein ways known and unknownto our environment and potentially our health, Bonta said.
For decades, ExxonMobil has been deceiving the public to convince us that plastic recycling could solve the plastic waste and pollution crisis when they clearly knew this wasnt possible," Bonta said. "ExxonMobil lied to further its record-breaking profits at the expense of our planet and possibly jeopardizing our health."
Bonta is seeking to secure an abatement fund, disgorgement (a legal remedy that requires a party to give up profits or other gains that were obtained illegally or unethically) and civil penalties for the harm inflicted by plastics pollution upon Californias communities and the environment.
ExxonMobilsmarketing faulted
For decades, ExxonMobil 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, Bonta said.
He said this caused consumers to purchase and use more single-use plastic than they otherwise would have due to the companys misleading public statements and advertising.
For instance, through a trade group launched to promote recycling as an alternative to reducing plastics consumption, ExxonMobil placed a 12-page editorial-style advertisement in a July 1989 edition of Time magazine titled The URGENT NEED TO RECYCLE."
This advertorial highlighted recycling as a smart solution for plastic waste and efforts to further recycling and recycling technology. Since 1970, ExxonMobil, through this trade association, also adapted and promoted the chasing arrows symbol for plastics.
This symbol is now strongly associated with recycling and consumers are led to believe that items with the 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, Bonta alleged.
Photo Credit: Consumer Affairs News Department Images
Posted: 2024-09-23 19:05:04
