I think the issue is that production of plastic seems to be problematic in and of itself because it's so difficult to get rid of. Especially at the enormous sca

I think the issue is that production of plastic seems to be problematic in and of itself because it's so difficult to get rid of. Especially at the enormous scale we're doing it (a single use fork made of metal would be ludicrous). Contrast to say, very small bits of sawdust or rocks or metal filings or whatever making their way into wastewater. I'd be interested to know the behaviour of other 'pollutants' i.e. materials that aren't especially toxic but modify the environment regardless. You can't rely on it all being recycled by virtue of it simply existing - we seemingly don't have a solution for microplastics in clothes for example, but also, every item of plastic litter is in the environment "forever" - imagine 200 years of people chucking the odd thing out of the window, car tires, carpets, etc. So whilst this seems to be a good solution for recycling, it may not be a good idea to allow plastic use to continue ballooning, and if you look at it through that lens we don't actually want to make disposal too cheap.