PLASTIC AND RECYCLING-RELATED LITIGATION
CD: Could you provide an overview of recent trends in lawsuits related to plastic and recycling? How prevalent are claims that companies misrepresent the environmental impact or recyclability of plastic packaging?
Oryszczuk: Recycling and plastics, not to mention waste, are hugely ubiquitous topics, much like plastics themselves. Myriad measures in the European Union’s (EU’s) ‘Strategy for Plastics’ demonstrate the scale of regulatory and policy measures and initiatives which have or are being made – everything from packaging and waste, end of life vehicles, microplastics, chemicals and wider pollution and environmental harm. Many of these are implemented in concrete legislative requirements which regulators actively enforce; the trend is that regulatory action is coming from different authorities with different remits, and this is only set to increase. We are now seeing many more actions around greenwashing and misleading environmental and social claims. Taking the UK as an example, there have been numerous recent advertising claims against consumer products companies around how ‘recyclable’, compostable or biodegradable a product is – or its parts – around percentage or make up of recycled content and materials, or more specifically being ‘plastic free’.
Fleming: In the US, lawsuits related to plastics and recycling increasingly have been brought against industry, with a particular focus on the accuracy of representations made by manufacturers or retailers about the ‘recyclability’ of products. In addition to private litigation in this space, an important possible trend to watch is litigation by state attorneys general. When state attorneys general align and coordinate to file litigation over certain topics, or target certain defendants in their respective jurisdictions, they can create substantial momentum and present even more significant liability risks. They also can spawn even more private litigation.
Oct-Dec 2023 issue
CMS
Dechert LLP