LA County Sues Pepsi And Coke Over Plastic Pollution And False Advertising

Los Angeles County announced last week that it is suing PepsiCo and Coca-Cola over plastic pollution, arguing that the soda giants’ plastic bottles have harmed public health and the environment and that the companies knowingly misled the public about recyclability of their products.

“Coke and Pepsi must stop the deception and take responsibility for the plastic pollution problems your products are causing,” Los Angeles County Council President Lindsey P. Horvath said in a statement. The lawsuit seeks an injunction against Coca-Cola and PepsiCo’s “deceptive trade practices” — their sustainability claims — plus civil penalties and restitution for consumers who were misled by those claims.

The 41 page complaint begins with an overview of the plastic pollution crisis and how single-use plastic is specifically affecting California and LA County. Although L.A. County invests millions of dollars to collect and manage plastic trash — for example, by street sweeping and large trash explosions at the mouths of the Los Angeles River and Ballona Creek — it simply cannot keep up with the scale of the problem. .

Single-use plastics “continually wash into the county’s waterways and storm and sewer systems,” the suit says. Once in the environment, plastic litter can break down into MICROPLAST and lye endocrine disrupting chemicals such as BPA and phthalates.

The complaint then describes Coca-Cola and Pepsi’s huge contribution to these problems, using analysis from a “brand audit” made by the nonprofit organization Break Free From Plastic. Last year, the audit found that drinks manufacturers were the world’s two biggest plastic polluters, as determined by the collections of plastic with their brand on it by volunteers from the global beach cleanup, which presented several of their products than any other companies. Those results are “consistent with pollution rates in Los Angeles County,” according to the complaint.

Pepsi and Coca-Cola are among the largest companies in the world; Pepsi’s market value is about $228 billion, and Coca-Cola’s is $282 billion. In addition to the eponymous soft drink lines, the two companies collectively own numerous beverage brands, including Dasani, Fresca and PowerAde (Coca-Cola products) and Aquafina, Gatorade and Mountain Dew (PepsiCo products), all of which have been sold. in disposable plastic bottles.

“I have a lot of fear and anger at the plastic that I’m forced to interact with on a daily basis,” said Emily Parker, an LA County resident and coastal and marine scientist at the nonprofit Heal the Bay, who was not involved in the complaint. “It is not possible to live and function without coming into contact with plastic.”

But at the heart of the suit is the claim that Coca-Cola and PepsiCo knew about the problems their plastic bottles would cause – and that they deliberately misled the public about them, notably by promoting plastic recycling, but also by general statements about building a “a stronger and more sustainable future for us all.” LA County describes these as cynical efforts to appease concerned members of the public and describes a pattern of lack or failure to make progress on quantitative goals to reduce the use of plastics.

According to LA County, Coca-Cola and Pepsi have framed plastic recycling as a central solution to the plastic crisis by falsely stating or implying that their bottles are or will one day be endlessly recyclable. But due to material constraints, plastic bottles cannot be turned into new bottles repeatedly; most plastic recycling is “downcycling,” meaning it is turned into lower-quality plastic products, such as Adirondack chairs, that cannot themselves be recycled. Scientists have estimated that of all the plastic produced between 1950 and 2015, only 0.9 percent it has been recycled several times.

The complaint calls for the companies to pay restitution to “all victims of their unfair and deceptive business practices” and pay civil penalties of up to $2,500 for each violation of California’s false advertising and unfair competition laws.

In response to a request for comment, Pepsi and Coke referred Grist to William Dermody, vice president of media and public affairs for the American Beverage Association, an industry group. Dermody said it was “simply not true” that plastic bottles are not recycled; In California, he cited a statistic that said polyethylene terephthalate bottles like those from Coca-Cola and Pepsi are recycled at a rate of 70 percent. He said the companies’ bottles are “designed to be recycled and remade and can include up to 100 percent recycled plastic.”

LA County’s complaint says Coke and Pepsi ads hide the fact that the vast majority of the plastic they use is virgin, not recycled. In 2022, only 13.6% of coca plastic was recycled; that number was 6 percent for Pepsi.

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Eric Buescher, senior attorney for the nonprofit San Francisco Baykeeper, said lawsuits like LA County’s could “snowball” if they prove effective. “If they win and get a great result, there’s going to be a lot of copycat litigation,” he said.

That being said, a similar process filed last year by New York Attorney General Letitia James against PepsiCo was fired last week on the grounds that it should be up to the legislative or executive branch to tackle plastic pollution and misinformation. The judge said that while he could think of “no reasonable person who does not believe in the imperatives of recycling and being better stewards of our environment, this does not give rise to phantom liability claims that do nothing to solve the problem which exists. .”

Buescher said that seemed like a “hostile” way to approach the issue. “People are generally responsible for the foreseeable consequences of their conduct and for misleading others about it,” he said. “And reducing the amount of plastic made into single-use products would certainly seem like a way to at least partially solve the problem.”

Whether other justices will agree with Buescher remains to be seen. Several lawsuits are still pending, including one brought by the city of Baltimore in June against Coca-Cola, PepsiCo and Frito Lay over the “public nuisance” represented by their bedding and a brought by the Sierra Club in 2021 against Coca-Cola and other beverage manufacturers for labeling their bottles as “100% recyclable.” Buescher’s own organization, along with Heal the Bay, Surfrider and the Sierra Club, recently filed a complaint against a company further up the supply chain: Exxon Mobil, the world’s largest producer of polymers used to make plastics. California Attorney General Rob Bonta sued Exxon Mobil for false advertising and environmental pollution.

Parker, with Heal the Bay, said the lawsuits all have the same overall goal: to stop companies from producing so much plastic. “I’ve been involved in plastic pollution work for a long time, and the thing I’ve learned is that cleaning up is never enough,” she said. “We need to hold all types of plastic manufacturers accountable for the mess they’ve made to our environment and the harm it’s causing to our bodies.”