Moral culpability. It should be legal culpability as well, but we haven't written the law yet.

This thread and the article are both about a lawsuit. Saying they should be culpable would imply legal culpability in this context, of which they have none.

If you make a product where the packaging kills you then it is illegal. But if you make one where it kills lots of people much later then you are fine?

Your theory makes the EPA rather pointless.

Something being legal at a given point in time doesn't make it an absolute truth. Look at slavery, torture, age of consent, I'm sure it all sounded very good to the guys in charge back in the days. In a few centuries people will look back at us and wonder why the fuck we were so stupid.

I mean, just think about it for a single second, who profit from these things beside big corporations, certainly not me, you or our future descendants.

Making false and misleading claims to consumers. The suit alleges Coke & Pepsi (and others) engaged in consumer-targeted campaigns to label their plastic packaging as "recyclable" even though they knew they were producing more plastic packaging than all of the recycling facilities in the US combined could have possibly processed.

According to https://www.law.cornell.edu/cfr/text/16/260.12 , they would be in the clear as long as 60+% of users have access to recycling facilities/programs for these products.

This is surely the case since nearly every municipality has some program in place. The obvious problem is that these cities aren't actually recycling things while claiming they are -- possibly even requiring people to recycle. It looks to me like cities need to be sued to remove these plastics from the programs. Then 60% wouldn't have access to recycling programs, and then it would be deceptive to label it as recyclable.

Another avenue would be a change by legislation.

For all the outrage, this lawsuit is going nowhere.

And before I'm called a shill: Don't drink Coke. Don't drink Pepsi. Don't drink bottled water.

I'm just a fan of the law being knowable -- oh, and articles having substance.

They aren't alleging a violation of FTC marketing guidelines, they're alleging a violation of California marketing guidance, which sets a higher (though still, as far as I can tell, optional) standard. Regardless, a company can still be culpable and held liable for wrongdoing even if they've dutifully followed "industry standards".

I agree the lawsuit is unlikely to go anywhere. But many people said the same about the lawsuits against big tobacco. And even if the lawsuit is tossed at the very first opportunity the organization has called attention to some of the worst actors when it comes to plastic production. I'd call that a win.

Either way it's the way our system slowly but sure gets the wheels of progress spinning.

No Dumping - the same laws that are broken if you toss a TV on the side of the road. That the stuff passes through intermediaries doesn't matter if you know its inevitable destination.

Hustlers that stand on city corners pushing junk flyers onto passers-by, creating a pile of discards 20 feet down the street, are in the same boat.

> Hustlers that stand on city corners pushing junk flyers onto passers-by, creating a pile of discards 20 feet down the street, are in the same boat.

Paper degrades naturally, and most paper in the West is now produced from sustainable sources. So, paper littering is not as deleterious as plastic that doesn’t get properly recycled.