A judge has ruled against the Plastics Industry Association in its legal battle with California Attorney General Rob Bonta, ordering the association to turn over records in his probe of industry recycling practices.
Sacramento County Superior Court Judge Richard Sueyoshi ruled in favor of Bonta on Feb. 6, enforcing a subpoena the attorney general had issued seeking decades worth of records the association held at the Hagley Museum and Library in Wilmington, Del.
The court gave the plastics association until April 25 to comply.
Matt Seaholm, president and CEO of the Washington-based association, said in a statement that it will provide the records to Bonta.
"With this final technical ruling, we will now formally make copies of the documents that were available for research and provide them to the California Attorney General," said Seaholm. "We would have preferred for the State of California to work collaboratively with PLASTICS [as the association calls itself] and across our industry towards increasing recycling rates instead of wasting taxpayer funds on needless litigiousness."
In a Feb. 7 statement, Bonta hailed the ruling.
"We are pleased with the court's decision to grant our petition to enforce our investigative subpoena against [the assosciation]," Bonta said. "We are looking forward to vigorously pursuing our investigation."
The two sides have been sparring in state court in California and federal court in Washington since late May 2024, as part of Bonta's broader investigation into whether the industry deceived the public about the potential of recycling to solve plastics pollution challenges.
As part of the ongoing probe, Bonta sued ExxonMobil Chemical in September.
Both the plastics association and the American Chemistry Council had sued Bonta in federal court in Washington on May 24, to block his attempts to access their records.
They argued that Bonta's subpoenas violated the First Amendment rights of association and its member companies, by seeking internal communications. Bonta countersued in state court in Sacramento a few days later to enforce the subpoenas.
In its statement, the plastics association accused Bonta of running a media-centric investigation.
"Mr. Bonta's statement mirrors his press-release-focused approach to this entire process," Seaholm said. "The ruling from the California judge has nothing to do with plastic or recycling. It was about fighting for our members' constitutional right to associate."
But Bonta said the association was keeping decades of records at the Hagley Library that could shed light on what the industry knew about the feasibility of recycling and the "staggering" waste problems the state faces.
"Plastic pollution is seeping into our waterways, poisoning our environment, and wreaking havoc on our health," Bonta said. "The plastics industry has knowingly engaged in an aggressive, decades-long campaign to deceive the public, perpetuating a myth that recycling can solve the plastics crisis."