> Collected plastics in Germany are usually not recycled, [...]
...well, I use the term "recycle" very loosely. If it's disposed of responsibly, then fair enough. That presumably includes burning, as long as you do it in a way where you don't just blow the toxines into the atmosphere, and, presumably, wherever you generate heat, you can at least get some electricity out of it.
It just seems to me like the PBS article is strawmaning the pro-plastic argument by making it look like the only way you can have plastic at all, is if you're cool with it ending up in landfill.
The logic seems to be this: Plastic is extremely cheap to manufacture from primary resources, therefore recycled plastic could never compete in the marketplace with newly-made plastic, therefore there's no demand for used plastic as a resource in making recycled plastic, therefore used plastic will end up in landfill. Compare that to textile which has a much larger economic footprint and costs more to produce while being more durable. The previous argument about the primary market crippling the secondary market doesn't hold for textile. After all, second-hand clothing stores are a thing, and probably are a force for good.
But people mistakenly take away the message "textiles are good, plastics are bad". The economy is starting to reflect that consumer sentiment, and you're seeing plastics replaced by textiles in lots of scenarios to reach the "green consumer". Is that a net-positive, environmentally speaking? Probably not. If the break even is at 130 uses of a cotton tote bag, and assuming one shopping trip per week, we'd have to, on average, see nearly 3-year-old tote bags being used for them to make sense. I don't think that's what I'm seeing around me, I'm seeing mostly brand-new tote bags and/or people sporting a different one every day of the week because they have dozens at home.
What I'm also seeing: "Green" consumers are mostly just "rich folk", and their greenness doesn't stop them from engaging in their "rich folk" behaviours. They are buying more stuff, and replacing it more frequently, plus they are paying higher prices to have the stuff they buy be made from more durable materials, because durability gives a material an environmentally-friendly image while low cost gives materials a "damaging for the environment" image.
There is a very simple solution to this dilemma: Dispose of plastic responsibly despite the cost. It's not like nothing could ever get done in the world if free market incentives didn't force them to get done. Covid shutdowns got done. Some things are just a matter of principle. Make this a matter of principle. Pay for what it truly costs to dispose of this stuff out of your own pocket. If that means that plastic is still more economical for you to use for certain applications than alternatives, then by all means keep using plastic.