This is very short-term and ideological perspective. Central planning is wrong and therefore any attempt to influence what materials we produce and use as a soc

This is very short-term and ideological perspective. Central planning is wrong and therefore any attempt to influence what materials we produce and use as a society better have a damn good reason that can demonstrate an immediate and clear return on the irksome cost of interfering with the free market. I think the war on plastic represents our collective awareness of human harms to our planet. Whether the solutions we come up with are expensive, ineffective or even somewhat harmful isn't more important than the fact that we are beginning to factor human impact into our economic models. Dealing with the harms of plastics today isn't really the problem to solve - creating ways for us to factor in those harms and prevent/manage them over the long-term is.