California is suing three plastic manufacturers who say they are violating state law by offering bags that are billed as real when they actually are. Gen. Rob Bonta announced Friday.
The companies named in the case, Novolex Holdings LLC – one of the world’s largest food, beverage, and specialty packaging companies – Inteplast Group Corp. and Metter Packaging LLC, according to the attorney’s office.
In a press conference on Friday, Bonta also announced the payment of four plastic bag manufacturers – Revolution, Metro Poly, Prezero and API – who agreed to stop more than $1.7 million for selling plastic gates that could not be recycled. The settlement amount includes $1.1 million in civil fines and more than $636,000 in attorneys’ fees and costs.
“Plastic bag companies have continued to distribute non-reusable plastic bags in California and mislead Californians about their returnable bags,” Bonta said. “In fact, even if consumers disposed of these plastic bags properly, they were recycled in California and could not be recycled.”
The result, Bonta said, is that billions of plastic Carryout bags end up in landfills, incinerators, and the environment instead of being recycled.
All plastic bags sold to consumers by retailers in California cannot be recycled. Stores will need to turn to paper bags or canvas bags that work as plastic bags are introduced, said Bonta.
The lawsuit asks the court not only to enforce consumer protection laws and SB 270, the state’s plastic bag ban, but also to force companies to return profits made from the sale of their bags and additional fines.
Novolex Holdings LLC, Inteplast Group Corp. and Mettler Packaging LLC did not immediately respond to emails seeking comment.
Friday’s press conference comes on the heels of years of long-running investigations into the fuel and petrochemical industry’s alleged role in polluting plastic waste, and tricking the public into thinking it could solve the problem of plastic recycling.
Since California adopted the nation’s first single-use plastic shopping bag ban in 2014, many retailers began offering thicker, reusable plastic bags to customers that must be recycled.
These bags are made of a material known as HDPE, which is larger and heavier than the LDPE plastic bags that have been produced for decades. While both materials can be recycled, they often aren’t in residential and consumer settings, experts say.
In 2022, Bonta sent letters to six companies that make plastic bags, asking them to apologize that their product was able to be recycled again at such facilities in California.
It was accepted by the investigators, he said, that these large, reusable plastic bags were not accepted for recycling.
While the bags display “chasing arrows” recycle bins and direct consumers to recycle them, only two of the 69 recycling centers surveyed as part of the federal government said they accept plastic bags. And those agencies could not confirm whether the bags were eventually recycled, according to the attorney general’s office.
About 48 million tons of plastic waste is generated in the United States each year and only 5% to 6% is recycled through recovery or ends up in landfills, according to the Department of Energy.
“We have to think about the cost to the environment, to our future, to our climate, to our plumbing that the plastic bags are not working as they reach our roads and the sea,” said Bonta. “There’s a big cost to that.”
Staff writer Susanne Rust contributed to that report
