If we actually made corporations pay to clean up their bs, I wonder how many years of "economic growth" would turn out to have been an illusion. The other day an article was posted here showing that, in Australia, backyard eggs have 5x the lead content of store-bought eggs due to pollution. Today 10% of all yearly deaths worldwide are caused by air pollution. Another article on the frontpage of HN today is about how rainwater even as far as in Antartica is not safe to drink due to PFAS. Even if you recycle, chances are the majority of your plastics end up in a landfill or the ocean
Imagine if we actually made these companies take into account the full lifecycle costs of their products. Styrofoam takes around a million years to naturally decompose. A styrofoam cup would probably cost thousands of dollars. Other plastics don't last as long, but you can imagine the "economic disaster" that would be caused by plastics suddenly costing in dollars what they cost in total environmental impact