LOS ANGELES — Los Angeles County takes on Pepsi and Coca-Cola for their role in plastic pollution.

In a lawsuit filed Wednesday, the county alleged that PepsiCo and Coca-Cola companies misled the public about the recyclability of their plastic bottles and downplayed the negative environmental and health impacts of plastic disposal.

“Coke and Pepsi must stop the deception and take responsibility for the plastic pollution problems their products are causing,” Los Angeles County Supervisor Lindsey Horvath said in a statement. “Los Angeles County will continue to address the serious environmental impacts caused by companies that engage in deceptive and unfair business practices.”

Coca-Cola owns brands like Dasani, Fanta, Sprite, Vitamin Water and Smartwater, while PepsiCo owns Gatorade, Aquafina, Mountain Dew and more. The two companies have been ranked the world’s top plastic polluters for five years running, and Coca-Cola has held the number one spot for six years, according to global environmental group Break Free From Plastic.

PepsiCo produces approximately 2.5 million metric tons of plastic and Coca-Cola produces approximately 3.224 million metric tons of plastic annually, according to Break Free from Plastic.

A European Union consumer protection group and environmental organizations filed a legal complaint against Coca-Cola, Nestlé and Danone last November, accusing them of being misleading by presenting packaging as 100% recycled or 100% recyclable.

The Los Angeles lawsuit claims that Coca-Cola and PepsiCo have employed “misinformation campaigns” to get consumers to buy single-use plastic, believing they are recyclable and less harmful to the environment.

He alleged that both companies promised to create a “circular economy” for their bottles, in which plastic bottles can be recycled and reused an infinite number of times, while in reality plastic bottles can only be recycled once, if at all. that can be recycled.

The American Beverage Association, which includes PepsiCo and Coca-Cola, denied the lawsuit’s allegations about its plastic bottle recycling labels.

“The allegation that our packaging is not and will not be recycled is simply not true,” the group’s spokesman, William Dermody, said in a statement.

Dermody said California had a 71% bottle recycling rate in 2023, one of the highest in the country, and that its bottles are “designed to be recycled and remade and can include up to 100% recycled plastic.”

In 2022 alone, an estimated 121,324 to 179,656 tons of plastic waste leaked into land and the ocean in California, with plastics making up seven of the top 10 litter products found on beaches, the lawsuit states.

A big part of the problem is microplastics.

Plastics that have leaked into the environment end up disintegrating into small pieces of plastic that measure five millimeters or less. They can affect soil and plant growth, marine and fish life, and are nearly impossible to remove from the environment, the lawsuit states.

Some Australian researchers, on behalf of the World Wildlife Fund, estimated in 2019 that many people consume approximately 5 grams of plastic from common foods and drinks each week, and microplastics have been found in body tissues and organs. Although research overall remains limited, there is growing concern that microplastics in the body may be linked to heart diseaseAlzheimer’s and dementia, and other problems.

The lawsuit seeks an injunction to stop the companies’ “unfair and deceptive business practices,” as well as restitution for consumers and civil penalties of up to $2,500 per violation.

In February 2020, the environmental organization Earth Island Institute filed a lawsuit in California seeking damages and an order for Coca-Cola, PepsiCo, Nestlé USA, Procter & Gamble and six other companies to clean up the plastic waste they should be responsible for.

The state of New York also sued PepsiCo last November for their role in creating plastic waste that litters the Buffalo River, which flows into Lake Erie and supplies drinking water to the city of Buffalo. A judge dismissed the case Thursday, stating in a court filing that there was no “failure to warn” the public about the dangers related to plastic and that there was no cause of action to punish the companies for the actions of a third party: people what rubbish