Baytown shows why Texas wins jobs, innovation, common sense
June 13, 2025
Editor’s note: The cities of Baytown and Mont Belvieu and Chambers County recently filed motions to intervene on the side of ExxonMobil in its lawsuit against California Attorney General Rob Banta, who contends the company is engaging in deliberately misleading the public about the limitations of recycling.
Well, there they go again. With all due respect to our neighbors out west, we’re thankful to live in Texas, and not California. Our state continues to attract jobs, talent and investment because we welcome innovation. A lawsuit over advanced plastic recycling being pursued by Rob Bonta, California’s Attorney General, is a perfect example of how the Baytown region is leading and evolving and California is bound to the past.
While we believe the lawsuit is meritless, it underscores an important philosophical divide. States like Texas welcome building things while California is overregulating progress out of reach. The irony of the Attorney General’s lawsuit is that California is standing in the way of a real, tangible technology to improve our environment through the expansion of circular recycling technologies.
Advanced recycling is not a buzzword here – companies are making significant investments in facilities in our region to convert hard-to-recycle, mixed plastics into the raw materials used to make new products, creating a continuous circular loop instead of a one-way ticket to landfills. Traditional recycling systems were not designed for modern complex plastics — but advanced technologies now allow us to recover materials from food packaging, cosmetic tubes and even artificial turf.
For municipalities across the country, this is a major step forward. The City of Houston already has a major advanced recycling partnership and as facilities expand, more cities could model it. The private sector knows this process works, and our residents support it.
As two individuals with decades of economic development experience, we’ve seen strong public support for efforts to expand this industry and create long-term partnerships between city and county governments, regional businesses and global innovators. We can clean up and manage plastic waste while creating good-paying jobs, revitalizing industrial infrastructure and giving companies a reason to manufacture value-added recycled material right here in Texas instead of overseas. Advanced recycling delivers solutions that are both environmentally responsible and economically sound.
Plastic waste is a real issue that will only grow in parallel with new manufacturing technology, global population, advancements in medical technology, food safety packaging and e-commerce. We should be championing advancements that give cities and counties the ability to recycle almost all plastic products. Bonta’s accusations simply do not reflect the real world, the evolving state of technologies, or the will of communities that actually want to solve the plastic waste problem. If his strategy stigmatizes these innovations, it could stall or shut down projects that are already making progress.
If California wants to continue making it harder to do business there, that’s their call. But when they try to impose those policies nationally through the courts, cutting off opportunities for communities like our region, we will not stand by. That’s why our cities and counties have stepped up to join the legal effort to push back.
Our community took that stand because we see the impact firsthand. These facilities are helping solve a real environmental challenge with real, science-based solutions, creating a virtuous cycle of skilled job creation, boosting our tax base and strengthening local supply chains. And they’re doing it in a way that fits with our region’s industrial expertise and infrastructure.
Advanced recycling is thriving in the Baytown region, and we want to be looked to as a model by other regions across the country. Baytown is proof that when local government and private enterprises work together, big things happen. We’re turning challenges into opportunities and showing what is possible when you combine Texas grit with global innovation. We invite other cities and states to follow our lead.
We’re glad to welcome anyone who wants to help build a more sustainable future. Based on the moving vans heading down I-10 from California to our region these days, people see the opportunity. We’re focused on cleaner communities, stronger industries and a brighter future for Texas families.
Rather than try to regulate or litigate these technologies out of existence, state leaders should be looking for ways to support and scale them. The future of recycling, and of sustainable manufacturing more broadly, will be built by states and communities that are willing to think differently, act locally, and invest in solutions that work.