Press Release

New Project Tracking Plastics Litigation

Check out the Plastics Litigation Tracker from the State Energy & Environmental Impact Center and the Guarini Center on Environmental, Energy, & Land Use Law.

Plastics Litigation Tracker
Logos of the State Energy & Environmental Impact Center and the Guarini Center on Environmental, Energy, & Land Use Law.
Illustrations of plastic water bottles, recycling arrows, smokestacks, gavels, justice scales, and plastic bags in various greens, blues, and yellows, displayed in a pattern across a white background.

New York, NY — Announcing the Plastics Litigation Tracker, a new resource from the State Energy & Environmental Impact Center and the Guarini Center on Environmental, Energy, & Land Use Law. The project tracks cases addressing plastics across federal and state courts, tagging each case by categories such as false advertising, environmental protection, and securities. The tracker includes resolved and pending cases, and will be kept up to date to reflect new developments.

What: The Plastics Litigation Tracker, a new resource that tracks cases addressing plastics across federal and state courts. It includes resolved cases and cases that are still pending, and provides a summary and status update for each case. The cases can be filtered by category, plaintiff, defendant, and jurisdiction, or searched for by keyword.

Where: plasticslitigationtracker.or

Why: Over the last ten years, as production of plastic products has grown, so has litigation around plastics and plastic pollution. This tracker allows users to stay up to date on these cases and follow trends in plastics litigation. The tracker currently has 44 cases, revealing four major trends so far, as explained in this blog post.

“As the plastics and petrochemical industry continues to grow, litigation surrounding it will too. Advocates can use this tracker to understand the fate of different litigation strategies and approaches in the courts. Scholars can use it to analyze litigation trends on this issue at both the federal and state level going back for decades,” said Bethany Davis Noll, Executive Director of the State Energy & Environmental Impact Center at NYU School of Law. “The plastics litigation tracker will be an essential tool for anyone interested in the role litigation has played in the plastics and petrochemical landscape.

“With the stark and growing impact of plastic on oceans, the air, and human health, advocates have been working to hold accountable the corporations that are responsible. Industry has also filed cases against plastics regulation. Our new tracker is intended to document these trends and provide a source of analysis for government, business, law, and the NGO community,” said Danielle Spiegel-Feld, Executive Director of the Guarini Center for Environmental, Energy, & Land Use Law at NYU School of Law.

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About the State Energy & Environmental Impact Center:
The State Energy & Environmental Impact Center at NYU School of Law is a nonpartisan academic center at NYU School of Law. The Center is dedicated to working towards a healthy and safe environment, guided by inclusive and equitable principles. The Center studies and supports the work of state attorneys general (AGs) in defending, enforcing, and promoting strong laws and policies in the areas of climate, environmental justice, environmental protection, and clean energy.

About The Guarini Center on Energy, Environment, and Land Use Law:
The Guarini Center on Energy, Environment, and Land Use Law at NYU School of Law focuses on environmental and energy challenges at the local, regional, and international levels. Our work is rooted in a belief that with appropriate strategies, regulatory policies can simultaneously achieve environmental and economic objectives. The Guarini Center endeavors to advance such strategies through policy-relevant research and multi-stakeholder dialogues with professionals in government, business, law, and the NGO community