The plastics industry has a major image problem — one they’ve tried to solve by selling the public on plastic recycling. As long as I’ve been alive, Big Oil and the plastics industry have pushed the narrative that recycling can solve the plastic waste crisis, all while knowing that actual recycling rates would never come close to matching the volume of plastic produced.
Despite decades of promises, the recycling rate for plastic waste in the U.S. has stagnated at 5-6%. As the public and policymakers have called for action on plastic waste collecting in our communities and, now, bodies, the plastics industry has doubled down on the promise of plastic recycling — now selling us so-called “advanced recycling.”
Last year, California Attorney General Rob Bonta filed a first-of-its-kind lawsuit against ExxonMobil, charging the oil giant with deceiving the public about the recyclability of plastics. The case cites Exxon’s long-standing knowledge that plastic recycling is not viable at scale and alleges that the company promoted it anyway, in part, as a strategy to “offset sagging fuel sales with profits from plastic sales.”
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The lawsuit alleges that Exxon is now doing the same thing with so-called “advanced recycling.” Also known as chemical recycling, “advanced recycling” is the new, catchall term that Big Oil and the plastics industry uses to describe various processes that break down plastics into petrochemicals through the addition of heat, pressure and/or chemical solvents. The technology has been explored as a solution for plastic waste since the 1970s to little avail. Attorney General Bonta asserts Exxon has merely rebranded this failed solution in order to reassure the public while plastic production continues to grow exponentially.
The evidence backs him up.
In a new investigative report, my colleagues and I at the Center for Climate Integrity reveal that while plastics companies have heavily marketed “advanced recycling” as a solution for plastic waste, industry insiders, consultants, trade groups and key stakeholders have raised serious doubts about its feasibility.
As one industry consultant put it in 2024, advanced recycling has had “few successes and a ton of failures.” Exxon’s flagship plant in Baytown, Texas, for example, has promised to process 1 billion pounds of plastic per year by the end of 2026. But as of early 2025, it had only managed about 70 million pounds over three years — just 7% of its goal.
“From where I sit, things look grim,” the consultant said. “The fact that we don’t have a really successful case study at this point makes me think it’s going to be all uphill to make [chemical recycling] work.”
Even if it did work, this alleged solution would do little to address the growing crisis. The U.S. generates over 35 million tons of plastic waste annually — approximately one thousand times more plastic waste than Exxon’s Baytown facility has processed in three years. According to a 2023 analysis, if all of the chemical recycling facilities in the U.S. operated at full capacity — which they don’t — they would be capable of processing only 1.3% of U.S. plastic waste.
Put simply: Advanced recycling is not a solution to the plastic waste crisis, and the industry knows it. As with traditional plastic recycling, the plastics industry is selling us “advanced recycling” not because it is a real solution for plastic waste, but because it is a proven solution for protecting plastic production.
This campaign of deception from Big Oil and the plastics industry underscores why California’s lawsuit against Exxon is so vital. If Big Oil and the plastics industry are allowed to continue peddling false solutions to delay action on plastics and fossil fuels for another 40 years, the consequences for the next generation will be dire. Attorney General Bonta is demanding Exxon be held accountable for its fraud. More officials should do the same.
Chelsea Linsley is a senior attorney at the Center for Climate Integrity and a contributor to the new report, “The Fraud of Advanced Recycling: How Big Oil and the Plastics Industry are Promoting a False Solution to the Plastic Waste Crisis.”