The deception is over.

California announced on Thursday the opening of a large-scale investigation aimed at establishing the responsibilities of the petrochemical industry in plastic pollution.

Specifically, the investigations will examine “past and present efforts by the petrochemical industry” to deceive the public and determine how “these actions may have violated the law”, explain the services of the attorney general of the American State in a statement.

“In California and around the world, we are seeing the catastrophic consequences of this decades-long campaign of deceit by the fossil fuel industry.

Plastic pollution is seeping into our waterways, poisoning our environment and rotting our landscapes,” said California Attorney General Rob Bonta.

This waste degrades into plastic micro-particles that are found in all the oceans of the globe, in the pack ice, in the stomachs of animals and even in the air taken from the tops of mountains.

The overwhelming majority of plastic cannot be recycled

" That's enough.

For more than half a century, the plastics industry has aggressively campaigned to deceive the public, perpetuating the myth that recycling could solve the plastic crisis.

The truth is this: the overwhelming majority of plastic cannot be recycled, and the recycling rate has never exceeded 9%” in the United States, accused Rob Bonta.

The rest is buried in landfills, incinerated or released into the environment.

"Each week, we consume a volume of plastic equivalent to a credit card through the water we drink, the food we eat and the air we breathe", says Rob Bonta Bonta.

353 million tons of waste per year

The first act of this unprecedented initiative in the United States, the Californian authorities have assigned the American oil giant ExxonMobil, "major source of plastic pollution", to ask it for "information relating to its role" on this subject.

"We reject the allegations made by the attorney general's office," responded an ExxonMobil spokeswoman.

Some 460 million tonnes of plastics were produced in 2019 worldwide, generating 353 million tonnes of waste, of which less than 10% is currently recycled, according to the OECD.

According to the OECD, plastic products also represent nearly 3.5% of greenhouse gas emissions contributing to global warming.

"Most people don't realize how intertwined plastic production is with the hydrocarbon industry," Jennifer Savage, head of plastic pollution control at the Surfrider Foundation, told the Los Angeles Times. .

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