Despite the hysteria most commonly used plastics are harmless. The only things I can think of that may be harmful in some plastics are harmful on their own, fo

Despite the hysteria most commonly used plastics are harmless. The only things I can think of that may be harmful in some plastics are harmful on their own, for example lead which can be used as a plasticiser to soften PVC. Lead is toxic whether or not it is in plastic. Fortunately your PET soda bottle or PE grocciery bag does not contain lead for obvious reasons. Some other compounds like phthlates may have negative endocrine effects but I believe this is far from resolved. "Microplastics" to the extent they exist in meaningful concentrations are not anything like asbestos fibers (this is known) which cause mechanical damage to cell structures by their needle like shapes. Rather microplastics are akin to small sand particles. Inert dust. The very reason that plastics do not decompose makes most of them safe to life unless absurdly high concentrations of very small particles are present in which case sand or silt dust would be comparable. The mass hysteria about "plastics" in just shows how easily human emotions can be manipulated. Sure, plastic bags floating in the ocean may look like jelly fish sea turtles. This is why we shouldn't throw plastic bags in the ocean. Maybe bags should be made more dense than sea water so if they do end up in the ocean they sink. Otherwise the solution to the plastics "problem" is really simple: burn it, recycle it or bury it in the ground. The last option has the added benefit of potentially serving as a long term carbon sink. I could envision a world where solar power or bioengineered plants perhaps are used to pull CO2 from the atmosphere and lock it up in something useful and stable like polyethylene, which could be used or just burried in shallow pits removing CO2 from circulation for centuries or thousands of years.