This past Monday, September 23, the Sierra Club, the Surfrider Foundation, Heal the Bay, and San Francisco BayKeeper filed one lawsuit against petroleum and plastics manufacturing giant ExxonMobile while the California State Attorney General’s Office filed another.
The California lawsuit calls out Exxon’s fraudulent use of the “chasing arrows” usage on plastics products to imply that they are readily and safely recyclable while, truthfully, only a tiny portion of about 5% of worn out plastics are recycled in the United States. Meanwhile the Environmental Coalition lawsuit points out that un recycled plastics break down into microplastics which are found in human blood, heart and brain tissue, placentas, breast milk and elsewhere. Microplastics are emerging as a contributor to heart attacks, strokes, and separately to dementia. Yet Exxon and the plastics industry continues to insist that their products are safe and that recycling “works".
The Sierra Club Loma Prieta Plastic Pollution Prevention Team has been calling out recycling lies and public harms of microplastics mixed with questionable and dangerous chemicals, such as PFAS, for the past several years. We are beyond pleased to hear about this pair of lawsuits!
Related Articles
Inside Climate News, September 23, 2024: "Alleging Decades of Lies, California Sues ExxonMobil Over Plastic Pollution Crisis"
Heal the Bay, September 23, 2024: "Heal the Bay Sues Big Plastic"
yahoo!finance, September 23, 2024: "Profit Over Planet: Surfrider, the Sierra Club, Heal the Bay, and San Francisco Baykeeper Sue Exxon for Hiding the Truth About Plastic Harms"