It is widely reported that recycling of plastics isn’t working. The creation of new plastic from petroleum is much cheaper and more sanitary than sorting, breaking down and reusing old plastics.
The logical response is to replace plastic in single-use-followed-by-disposal settings with other products which are more biodegradable. At least at present those replacements are substantially less satisfactory than plastic.
Glass was once how beverages - beer and soft drinks - were packaged. Bottles were used, emptied, returned, sanitized, and refilled. But glass is heavy and fragile, and the replacement aluminum cans actually do get recycled. Unlike plastic, aluminum is cheaper to recycle than to produce new from ore.
The solution to the plastics problem is more technology, not less. Chemists need to develop satisfactory plant-based replacements for plastic which are stable in the medium run, but biodegradable in the long run.
