We've seen this playbook. But can it turn out better for plastics?
Lawsuits targeting the plastics industry are following a strategy that should look familiar because they're like the ones that targeted the tobacco industry in the 1990s.
The tobacco industry had a long record of winning in court until state attorneys general started to file suits alleging that cigarettes contributed to health problems among the population and that the industry had known about the risks associated with smoking but had misled the public about these dangers.
Lawyers framed the issue a public health crisis, and they eventually forced the tobacco industry to agree to a massive settlement totaling in the hundreds of billions of dollars.
In that context, California Attorney General Rob Bonta's lawsuit against ExxonMobil Corp. makes sense.
Bonta wants the court to order ExxonMobil to create and fund an abatement program and order the company to stop all allegedly deceptive statements regarding plastics recycling. The suit also seeks civil penalties to cover what the state alleges are costs associated with plastics, including climate change and higher health care costs.
After a two-year investigation, Bonta filed the lawsuit on Sept. 23. A day later, at a plastics health research conference in New York, Bonta told the crowd that he "eagerly awaited" more research on the effects of chemicals in plastics — and microplastics — on humans.
"This is actually a very important part of the lawsuit we filed yesterday, so we eagerly await your studies [and] your conclusions," Bonta said.
It's no secret that industry critics liken plastics to tobacco. They even call the industry Big Plastics.
But just how closely Bonta is following the playbook for the fight against Big Tobacco didn't really register with me until earlier this week when I was comparing notes on the case with Peter J. Schmitt, a longtime plastics industry executive and managing director and co-founder of Montesino Associates LLC.
I've known Peter a long time, and earlier this summer he wrote a thought-provoking op-ed for Plastics News that compared the way the industry was responding to critics to how the Catholic church responded to the sex abuse scandals of the early 2000s.
The Catholic church, Peter argued, followed a "reactive spiral" strategy that polarized people, contributed to a loss of trust in the institution and resulted in bankruptcies and a large transfer of wealth to attorneys.
So that's what the plastics industry is facing. Will it be successful?
I don't think plastics have to end up as big losers like the tobacco industry. After all, plastics have numerous societal benefits. Not just as a major employer, but plastics also help keep people safe, conserve energy, lower the world's carbon footprint and raise everyone's standard of living.
Bonta's case — and others that will predictably follow — will damage the plastics industry's reputation. That's already happening, because it's reinforcing the misconception that plastics can't be recycled.
Plastics, unlike tobacco, will have defenders. But it would be best for everyone — except the lawyers, obviously — if plastics can win in the court of public opinion instead of the Superior Court of the State of California, County of San Francisco.
Don Loepp is the editor of Plastics News and author of the Plastics Blog.