California Attorney General Rob Bonta filed a lawsuit Monday against petroleum giant ExxonMobil alleging the company misled the public about the recyclability of plastic products and plastic pollution.

The complaint spanning 147 pages seeks injunctions and civil penalties, including causes of action for public nuisance, water pollution, untrue or misleading advertising, and, allegations of fraudulent business practices.

The lawsuit charges that ExxonMobil, as the largest producer of single-use plastic polymers, ran deceptive advertising campaigns to convince the public that recycling was a cure-all to plastic waste and pollution despite knowledge that recycling could only reduce a small fraction of plastic waste. The suit also asserts that the company knew that degraded forms of plastic products, so-called microplastics, were virtually impossible to eliminate from the environment and would foreseeably invade nearly every aspect of the ecosystem.

In the complaint, the state attacked Exxon’s board of directors for “actively promot[ing] the false narrative that recycling can solve plastic waste.” According to the filing, Exxon’s board had opposed several shareholder proposals advocating reports on lowering plastic production to reduce plastic pollution in the ocean. The board attacked the proposals for offering the reduction of plastic production as a solution for plastic waste and touted “advanced recycling” as a solution that would allow the company to maintain profits.

Both the complaint and California Department of Justice (DOJ) press release cited the company’s campaign to convince the public of the efficacy of plastic recycling and efforts disguised as public interest opinions in major media publications like the Time Magazine, The Los Angeles Times, and The New York Times.

For instance, through a trade group launched to promote recycling as an alternative to reducing plastics consumption, ExxonMobil placed a 12-page editorial-style advertisement in a July 1989 edition of Time magazine, entitled “The Urgent Need to Recycle.” This “advertorial” highlighted recycling as a smart solution for plastic waste and efforts to further recycling and recycling technology. Since 1970, ExxonMobil, through this trade association, also adapted and promoted the chasing arrows symbol for plastics. This symbol is now strongly associated with recycling and consumers are led to believe that items with the symbol can and will be recycled when placed in the recycling stream. In reality, only about 5 percent of U.S. plastic waste is recycled, and the recycling rate has never exceeded 9 percent.

The DOJ’s lawsuit comes amid scientific revelations that microplastics permeate virtually every ecosystem on the planet and the human body, having been found in the lungs, blood, breast milk, and even the human brain. The effects of microplastics on the human body are still being researched but studies have shown that the chemicals in plastics including BPA, phthalates, and heavy metals can cause numerous health issues.

California’s efforts to tackle plastic pollution have recently ratcheted up, including an effort to close a loophole in plastic grocery bag bans and a bill banning the labelling of exported plastic waste as “recycled.”