I agree with most of this but I think we do recognize and every year we get smarter about how we handle it… I think it’s just very hard to see how we improve over a few years time scale… I remember in 1986 or 1987 my dad took us to his office I think it was cricket software in Pennsylvania and in the front of the very shiny new office was an extremely polluted stream. It was a bright red/orange color. I recall my dad telling us to avoid playing in the water and explaining that it was not supposed to be that color… years later and while much of the area that was farm land in PA is now homes and neighborhoods- I don’t believe such a stream exists…. That said plastic is still very hard thing to reduce in our environment already we see many more bio degradable examples of packaging being used and a lot of research into which plastics are harmful and ways to help reduce or mitigate the impacts… back in the 80s if it was known it was not talked about… progress is slow but if you care very deeply about it you should IMO go into research or engineering to do something positive about it. Understand why we use it and find good alternatives