Don't overlook the many benefits of plastics

Myself I see some plastics have a niche area they are best at, and are also quiet nice in other areas where maybe using plastic instead of natural materials has its benefits ... however it should be absolutely clear the article's lede (lead) [1] is in error as it picks on the idea some of the products ought not have been manufactured in the first place, laying blame at the consumer's feet and the lack of formal recycling within the country consuming the plastic products.

Though yes, clearly a lot of environmental issues are down to certain people who use disposable items they then carelessly disregarded out of the car's window, leave behind at some gathering at a park or beach; or even picking a nice country road as a good spot to spring clean their vehicle of plastic and paper trash alike, a lot of plastic issues could be laid at the feet of manufacturers and wholesalers of plastic - especially in regard to claiming or certifying a level of UV resistance.

Sadly from at least the 70s some within the manufacturing industry have set about to enshitify their products on offer, either using plastic that's not fit for service or simply using the wrong type of plastic -- invoking obsolescence moving a product from having a long 10 or 20 year life span down to just a couple of years.

Present time, there's plenty of folks who curse out the greenies for forcing the plastic industry to provide plastic that breaks down, when it catches them and costs them money in ruined contents or having to acquire another part. Things like the black disposable garbage bags that were once used to create suitable temporary storage safe out of harms way up on shelves so the dust doesn't settle on its contents, now invoke fury where at some point it reminds people around it's not the same stuff, and the bags shelf life expired as it rains black plastic clingy particles that cover everything else below and ... becomes a task in itself worse than a major spring clean, doesn't do any favours to practical uses of plastic in general. Sure the bag broke down, but the idea was after it's finished its service life, not while in some poorly lit room.

Each time I run into someone blaming modern regulations in real life in my part of the world, I've either got to remind the person if they're old enough, about the cordial bottles of the mid 70's era ... the ones that were so bad that just the fridge light was enough to corrupt them and how many bottles did the handle break off and land its contents on the floor before they simply started avoiding that brand. Not wanting to mention brand names here, but the GC ones that were square would have been the primary offenders most people my age and older would remember, mind GC were not alone in using piss poor plastic containers. I also recount / remind the person of the first commercially available plastic tarps that competed with canvas products. Though they look the same as the present ones that more often have a service life measured in days depending on its intended use, or months as merely a shade, the original ones from the late 80s had to complete. My first blue plastic tarp I bought in late 89 iirc, it lasted 10 years perfectly flapping in the wind, out in the sun without any issue of the eyes pulling out.

There's a long list of things one could be grateful for some plastic, parts that wouldn't exist without that tough bit of moulded plastic inside doing the heavy lifting. But the world could do without things that are made and sold that destroy themselves in weeks.

[1] > Don’t overlook the many benefits of plastics If they are a problem, it is because they are badly managed

Few people are more synonymous with wonder at the natural world than Sir David Attenborough, a nonagenarian television presenter. In recent years, Sir David has been campaigning fervently for an end to the plastic that his film crews find scattered across the planet. “The plastic in our oceans ought never to have got there in the first place,” he said in one interview. “Much of it perhaps ought not to have even been manufactured at all.” The first statement is reasonable, but the second is not—for it disregards the extraordinary benefits that plastics, and the industry which produces them, have provided both to humans and to the environment.