California and several environmental groups sued Exxon Mobil on Monday and accused the oil giant of engaging in a decades-long campaign that helped fuel global plastic waste pollution.

Speaking at an event during Climate Week in New York City, California Attorney General Rob Bonta said the state sued Exxon after concluding a nearly two-year investigation that he said showed Exxon was deliberately misleading the public about the limitations of recycling.

The investigation mirrors California's previous probes into the oil industry's alleged efforts to mislead the public about climate change, which the state is also suing over.

The latest case was filed in a state court in San Francisco. A coalition of environmental groups including the Sierra Club filed a related lawsuit in that court against Exxon on Monday raising similar allegations.

Bonta, a Democrat, said his office specifically sought information on Exxon's promotion of its "advanced recycling" technology, which uses a process called pyrolysis to turn hard-to-recycle plastic into fuel. He had said the technology's slow progress was a sign of Exxon's ongoing deception.

"Today's lawsuit shows the fullest picture to date of ExxonMobil's decades-long deception, and we are asking the court to hold ExxonMobil fully accountable for its role in actively creating and exacerbating the plastics pollution crisis through its campaign of deception," Bonta said in a statement.

He said he wants to end the company's "deceptive practices" and is seeking to secure an abatement fund and civil penalties for the harm inflicted by plastics pollution on California.

Exxon pushed back at the attorney general, arguing that solutions like advanced recycling work.

"Suing people makes headlines but doesn't solve the plastic waste problem. Advanced recycling is a real solution," said a spokesperson for ExxonMobil, adding that California has done "nothing to 'advance' recycling." (Reuters)