Less than a week after Baltimore filed a lawsuit trying to force companies to pay for plastics pollution in the city, an environmental group is out with a report suggesting other cities and states do the same.
The Washington-based Center for International Environmental Law released a report June 26 that outlines legal strategies, including nuisance, product liability and consumer protection laws, that it says local and state governments can use.
"States and cities are on the frontlines of the growing plastics crisis and the mounting costs it imposes on governments and economies," said CIEL President Carroll Muffett. "This report not only highlights the key corporate drivers of that crisis, but equips governments with robust legal tools to seek remedies, recover costs, and hold polluters accountable."
The report, "Making Plastic Polluters Pay: How Cities and States Can Recoup the Rising Costs of Plastic Pollution," suggest governments look to ongoing litigation around climate challenges and toxic chemicals as guideposts.
In the U.S., CIEL pointed to lawsuits brought by New York Attorney General Leticia James against PepsiCo Inc. over that company's role as a source of plastic waste, as well as a lawsuit Baltimore brought against cigarette makers over pollution from plastic filters.
It said plastics-related legal actions, like the June 20 lawsuit in Baltimore, are in their early stages.
"These cases are likely only the beginning, as more states and municipalities grapple with the challenges of accumulating plastic waste and microplastics contamination, and seek recompense for the time, resources, and livelihoods damaged by plastics," the report said.
The American Chemistry Council, however, said the report ignores the benefits of plastics and ongoing efforts to redesign plastic products to make them more recyclable.
"CIEL's report encouraging legal action against the plastics industry is a disappointing and misdirected distraction from the significant research and investments in product design, collection and recycling infrastructure plastic makers are making to help prevent plastic pollution," said Ross Eisenberg, president of the ACC unit America's Plastics Makers.
"More still needs to be done, but through elements including infrastructure investment, R&D, stakeholder support, and effective policy, we can make this a challenge of the past and retain the essential benefits plastics provide modern society," he said, adding that CIEL is repeating "decades-old assertions and mischaracterizations."
The CIEL report, however, urged local and state governments to cast a wide net and bring legal action not only for the cost of litter, but also for losses in tourism and fishing industries dependent on clean environments and for health care costs from exposure to toxic chemicals in plastics.
CIEL said the federal Clean Water Act could be a "powerful tool" for local governments to use, and pointed to the $50 million settlement in 2019 against Formosa Plastics Corp. for resin pellet pollution from its Point Comfort, Texas, plant.
Muffett told a 2022 online forum that he saw growing litigation risks to companies in the plastics supply chain.
The report said plastic resin producers and consumer goods companies using plastic packaging should be the focus of lawsuits. It suggested they are legally vulnerable for overselling the benefits of recycling, an approach echoed in California Attorney General Rob Bonta's ongoing investigation against the plastics industry.
"Governments spend time, money, and resources to combat an issue created by the companies that produce and market plastics and disposable plastic products," CIEL said. "Substantial and rising evidence indicates these companies have known, or should have known for decades, about the negative impacts that would result from their products, their operations, as well as their marketing and public relations campaigns."