As with most things, the answer is capitalism
If we weren’t forced to live under a system that prioritises private ownership and the maximisation of profits, can we honestly say that we would independently come to the conclusion that our continued use of fossil fuels and their derivatives is okay and should continue?
But in that case, what now confuses me is your critique on private ownership. State ownership would be the alternative in this case, no?
But under the old systems, the ones that naturally manifested across the world for millennia, the natural flow is that elites in control of the state kick down the ladder and form tiered societies that limit social mobility. Through this they secure their position for generations. To do away with private ownership is to remove the checks that have been put into place to limit the power of elites who would otherwise have exclusive control.
While there have been many historical attempts to prevent this from happening, only the more recent political philosophies prescribed by liberal democracies in the past ~200 years have been effective in, even if only partially, mitigating this core issue of resource consolidation by elites. By focusing on meritocracy to the extreme (relative to before), liberal democracy and "capitalism" make power more fluid, it makes the ladder kicking more challenging (but not impossible). Yet these checks alone have given way to the explosive increase in innovation and quality of life we all now benefit from today.
Can we do better? Absolutely, especially as innovation opens doors to new ideas and capabilities.
But don't get confused by the semantics and abstractions masking the core of it all: Power. If your solution is to just re-centralize power to the group of elites in charge, even if they are elected, then regression is destiny.
Plastic is great for all the reasons you describe, but it's really hell on the environment. The thing that offsets that side effect is its cheapness, and that's majorly a function of capitalism/private land ownership/the general way the world is organized right now.
You mention asbestos, but I'm pretty confident we would not have banned asbestos if we didn't have other comparably effective building insulation materials. (Indeed, it's still used in many poorer countries where people are unable to afford the alternatives.)
Of course it wouldn’t, I don’t think anybody would believe this. Abolishing capitalism would change the incentive for collecting and utilising those natural resources, though. It’s a lot easier to justify the made up idea of private property when you’re sitting on a pile of rocks that you believe will make you a lot of money than it is to justify sitting on a pile of rocks that a few people decided might be processed into something that’s a net positive to all of society. I have to wonder if plastics would be as ubiquitous as they are today if we didn’t have a very strong social and economic incentive to drill for its raw materials.