AG subpoenas ExxonMobil, opens major investigation
California Attorney General Rob Bonta on Thursday announced a major investigation into companies that manufacture plastics, the first of its kind in the nation, saying that for 50 years they have been engaged in potentially illegal business practices by misleadingly claiming that plastics products are recyclable, when most are not.
Bonta said he issued subpoenas to ExxonMobil, with other companies likely to follow, and said society’s growing plastics pollution problem — particularly in oceans, which are littered by trillions of tiny pieces of plastic — is something they are liable for and should be ordered to address.
“In California and across the globe, we are seeing the catastrophic results of the fossil fuel industry’s decades-long campaign of deception,” Bonta said. “Plastic pollution is seeping into our waterways, poisoning our environment, and blighting our landscapes. Enough is enough.”
The companies could be liable under California laws that prohibit fraudulent claims by industry, unfair business practices or pollution, he said.
Many measures of environmental health in the United States have been improving in recent decades, from smog levels to renewable energy. But plastics pollution is growing steadily worse.
Half the plastic that has ever existed on Earth was made in the last 20 years. Only 9% of the plastic sold every year in the United States is recycled, according to the U.S. EPA. Up to 13 million metric tons of it ends up in the world’s oceans each year — the equivalent of a garbage truck-full being dumped into the sea every minute — where it kills fish, birds, sea turtles, whales and dolphins that eat it or become entangled by it.
Plastic lasts for hundreds of years, and making it consumes petroleum, which contributes to climate change. At the current rate, one recent study found, by 2050 there will be more plastic by weight in the ocean than fish, most of it broken into trillions of tiny pieces of toxic confetti.