ExxonMobil is one of the world’s leading producers of polymers used in plastics. Since the 1970s, the oil company has known that the vast majority of plastic products would not be recycled.
And yet, the company has continued to publicly promote and use clever marketing to make consumers believe that recycling would be the solution. In reality, only 5% of American plastic waste is recycled, the California attorney general said on Monday. The rest ends up in nature, where petroleum-based plastics never fully decompose, but crumble and transform into micro- or nanoplastics that now pollute the ocean floor and even human breast milk.
Through the lawsuit, California is not only seeking compensation from ExxonMobil that could amount to billions of dollars. The state is also seeking to shift the responsibility and cost of plastic pollution from taxpayers and consumers to producers and packagers, in order to stop pollution at the source.
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