A Bay Area environmental group sued some of the world’s biggest food, beverage and product manufacturers Wednesday, accusing them of polluting the world’s oceans and waterways, including San Francisco and Monterey bays, with millions of tons of plastic.
The lawsuit, filed in San Mateo Superior Court by the Berkeley-based Earth Island Institute, accuses 10 of the giants in soft drink, food, candy, personal care and cleaning products sales of essentially overwhelming the world’s ecosystem with plastic while falsely claiming the bottles, containers and packaging material they produce will be recycled when most of it won’t be.