A lot of the time you can substitute paper, glass, wood, wicker, wax, natural fiber cloth or string, the things people were using at the turn of the 20th centur

A lot of the time you can substitute paper, glass, wood, wicker, wax, natural fiber cloth or string, the things people were using at the turn of the 20th century before any plastic other than rubber had been commercialised. There are also bioplastics that degrade quickly, and those could cover some of the remaining gaps. I don't think even long use products are good uses for plastic, TBH. Long in whose terms? Plastics will hang around for longer than we have had agriculture. Imagine if the Sumerians had made plastic. We'd still have their plastic temple tat, ox yokes, obsolete plough parts etc littering up the Iraq desert.