Cardboard and glass packaging used to be a lot more common. The key to reducing to use of plastic is fiddling with the economics. It's cheap for companies to use plastic as long as they don't have to worry about cleanup or recycling. As soon as you start charging them for the privilege of mass polluting our world with their cost savings, they can adapt pretty rapidly.

In the Netherlands, there are some discussions about going back to using cardboard packaging for dairy products. That was basically all there was when I grew up. Before cardboard, glass was very common for this stuff. But In recent years, a lot of plastic bottles were used for milk. But with the requirement to give people money for returning those to be recycled, that just got a lot less attractive. Plastic is only convenient if you don't have to recycle it.

Same with plastic bags. At some point those stopped being free (in most of Europe at least). And then people started pushing for paper bags. Problem solved. There are a lot less plastic bags now. I actually carry a nice foldable plastic bag made out of recycled plastic in my backpack these days. Fits behind the laptop compartment. So, I rarely need to buy paper bags.