News & Analysis
December 2, 2024
A Kansas county’s class action lawsuit over the fraud of plastic recycling could pave the way for more communities to take major fossil fuel and petrochemical companies to court to hold them accountable for plastic deception. Ford County, Kansas, sued several plastics companies last week, including ExxonMobil, Chevron, Dupont, and Dow Chemical, as well as the trade association the American Chemistry Council for their “decades-long campaign of fraud and deception about the recyclability of plastics.”
Ford County’s lawsuit directly cites language and evidence from the Center for Climate Integrity’s report “The Fraud of Plastic Recycling,” which was released earlier this year. The report shows how fossil fuel and petrochemical companies have promoted recycling as a solution to the plastic waste crisis despite knowing for more than 50 years that plastic recycling is not technically or economically viable at scale.
“This case is about Defendants’ profit-driven decision to promote the idea to the American consumer that plastics were recyclable and better for the environment, when in reality they had information that only a tiny fraction of plastics are ever recycled,” the complaint reads. “Defendants’ false representations regarding the recyclability of plastics led to increased production of plastic products, increased demand for plastics products, increased prices for plastic products and corresponding issues with the remediation of plastic waste, all of which have harmed the citizens of Kansas.”
The Kansas county lawsuit comes after the State of California filed a landmark case against ExxonMobil earlier this year for lying to the public about the viability of plastic recycling in order to sell more plastic. Ford County’s lawsuit is the first of its kind to include other major fossil fuel and petrochemical companies and trade associations as defendants.
“Every community in the United States has been harmed by the fraud of plastic recycling, and as this lawsuit shows, every community has the power to take Big Oil and the plastics industry to court to hold them accountable,” CCI President Richard Wiles said about the filing. “If a small Kansas county can sue these giant fossil fuel and petrochemical interests based on publicly available evidence, other communities can too.”
