additionally - even with the best intentions (in Germany for example, we have a great deposit based system where you return bottles for recycling / reuse at your local supermarket and get the deposit back) - it turns out that recycling just does not work as it should. DW (1) recently did an expose which showed that significant amounts of plastic that's sent through the recycling process actually ends up in south east asia (many companies are now banning this) - where it ends up getting burned / dumped into the ocean etc.

If we stopped it at the source - and forced these companies to spend a fraction of their massive revenues into innovating around more sustainable alternatives (effectively just pricing in the externality that they are currently getting a free ride on). You'd end up with a much better scenario where consumers can still enjoy the products and don't even have to deal with the cognitive overload of sorting 12 different types of waste.

I think one of the biggest coups that governmentes & corporations have pulled off is to let the burden of environmentally friendliness get shifted to the end consumer. This means that it requires masses of people to first get informed, then get mobilized and then start boycotting or putting pressure on these companies to change something. Pretty wasteful cycle if you ask me, easier to price it in much earlier at the source.

(1) https://www.dw.com/en/dumping-plastic-waste-on-others/av-494...