Plastics Litigation Update

Plastics is the newest chapter in environmental and public-health tort litigation. A wave of lawsuits seek to hold the plastics industry accountable for using the same corporate-deception playbook that tobacco, opioids, and PFAS manufacturers used before it. This presentation unpacks the “recycling fraud” narrative behind today’s major lawsuits, provides a survey on the current status of major plastics litigation — including California’s marquee case against ExxonMobil — and looks ahead to where the law may be headed on human health harms from plastics.