The Center Square) \u2013 California Attorney General Rob Bonta is suing three companies that allegedly distribute single-use plastic bags in violation of an 11-year-old state law.<\/p>\n
The lawsuit, filed in the Superior Court of California in San Francisco on Friday, names Novolex Holdings, Inteplast Group Corp. and Mettler Packaging and alleges that they unlawfully sold and distributed plastic bags. The suit also accuses them of producing misleading environmental marketing materials, failing to substantiate environmental marketing claims and engaging in untrue or misleading advertising. And the lawsuit accuses the companies of unlawful, unfair or fraudulent business practices.<\/p>\n
The continued distribution of lightweight, single-use plastic bags is a violation of Senate Bill 270<\/a>, which was passed in 2014 and upheld by voters in 2016 through Proposition 67<\/a>. It\u00a0prohibits plastic bag producers and stores from distributing single-use plastic grocery bags to customers unless the bags meet strict standards for recycling and reusability purposes, according to Bonta.<\/p>\n Some companies have continued distributing plastic bags that are not able to be recycled, Bonta said. The resulting lawsuit, against Novolex, Inteplast and Mettler, follows settlements reached with four other companies \u2013 Revolution Consumer Solutions, Metro Poly Corp., PreZero U.S. Packaging and Advance Polybag, Inc. \u2013 which have agreed to stop selling plastic bags in the state, Bonta said. The attorney general added the companies agreed to pay fines totaling more than $1.7 million.<\/p>\n He also said during a news conference Friday that the companies that distributed plastic bags labeled their plastic bags as recyclable, despite the bags not meeting California\u2019s standards for recyclable quality.<\/p>\n It costs an estimated $25 million to collect and dispose of these plastic bags every year, according to the settlement agreement.<\/p>\n \u201cThese bags are not recyclable at any meaningful scale anywhere in California,\u201d Bonta said. \u201cThe only thing being recycled are the false claims of the manufacturers.\u201d<\/p>\n Because of the continued distribution of these plastic bags, many of those bags have made their way into California\u2019s ecosystems, including waterways, Bonta said.<\/p>\n \u201cEven when consumers follow the instructions printed on these plastic bags and return the bags to designated recycling bins at stores or other locations, these bags generally end up in landfills or incinerators rather than getting recycled,\u201d Bonta said.<\/p>\n Representatives from Novolex, Mettler and Inteplast were not immediately available for comment on Monday. Representatives of Revolution Consumer Solutions, Metro Poly Corporation, PreZero U.S. Packaging and Advance Polybag, Inc. were similarly unavailable to comment.<\/p>\n Environmental groups on Monday praised Bonta\u2019s lawsuit.<\/p>\n \u201cWe applaud AG Bonta’s efforts to hold companies accountable for falsely claiming their plastic bags are recyclable. Plastic bags are not designed to be recycled,\u201d the Plastic Pollution Coalition wrote in a statement emailed to The Center Square. \u201cPlastic bags and other plastics pollute the environment, and they also pollute human bodies with microplastics and plastic chemicals that are linked to cancer, heart disease, infertility and sexual dysfunction, and neurodegenerative illnesses like Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s diseases. Plastic bags are among the plastic items that can be most easily replaced with reusable alternatives.\u201d<\/p>\n However, Bonta\u2019s move and California\u2019s regulations reducing plastic refuse in general have their critics.<\/p>\n \u201cThe bar is set so high for this recycling, they couldn\u2019t possibly have met it,\u201d Kerry Jackson, a researcher at Pasadena-based Pacific Research Institute, told The Center Square. \u201cI\u2019m not saying they were purposely trying to skirt it, but there is a demand for plastic bags, and we\u2019re really going to go back to paper in California? I don\u2019t think that\u2019s what they want.\u201d<\/p>\n Regulations like the ones California has adopted have economic impacts, not just in California, but beyond the state, Jackson said.<\/p>\n \u201cYou have copycat states that say they\u2019re going to do the same thing, and they are when it comes to a lot of environmental issues,\u201d Jackson told The Center Square. \u201cA lot of states follow California very religiously and just do what they do. You\u2019re putting companies out of business, workers out of jobs.\u201d<\/p>\n Legislators who have taken a stance on the use of plastic and its use in recycling have advocated for finding ways to increase recycling efforts and reduce waste.<\/p>\n \u201cI commend the Attorney General for holding plastic bag producers accountable for false recycling claims. Californians deserve to know that products labeled as recyclable truly are,\u201d Sen. Catherine Blakespear, D-Encinitas, told The Center Square in a statement emailed on Monday. \u201cThe state must keep acting to curb the scourge of plastic waste, which is poisoning our environment and our bodies.\u201d<\/p>\n This isn\u2019t the first time California has taken legal action against companies accused of violating the state\u2019s plastic regulations. In 2024, Bonta filed a lawsuit<\/a> against ExxonMobil, saying in a statement released that year that the company’s \u201cadvanced recycling\u201d program was nothing more than a public relations stunt. A total ban on plastic bags was adopted that same year, according to The Center Square\u2019s previous reporting.<\/p>\n The Golden State\u2019s fight against plastic pollution is one of a growing number of plastic bans across the country. In Pennsylvania<\/a>, legislators considered a ban on plastic bags earlier this year, and Democratic lawmakers in Michigan<\/a> introduced a bill this year that would also ban plastic shopping bags.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Center Square) \u2013 California Attorney General Rob Bonta is suing three companies that allegedly distribute single-use plastic…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":6746,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[3149,7,9,8,643,13449,9608,9781,13451,1667,13450],"class_list":["post-15651","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-california","tag-attorney-general","tag-california","tag-california-headlines","tag-california-news","tag-environment","tag-plastic","tag-plastic-bag","tag-plastic-bag-ban","tag-recycle","tag-recycling","tag-single-use-packaging"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15651","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15651"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15651\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6746"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15651"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15651"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15651"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}