I mean we as a society. We want really good containers for our food and other goods we purchase but we don't want a mountain of indestructible waste piling up e

I mean we as a society. We want really good containers for our food and other goods we purchase but we don't want a mountain of indestructible waste piling up everywhere and causing pollution and health problems. Before the invention of plastics we didn't have that. We had paper, metal, wood, and glass containers for food. They were either water susceptible (paper, wood, and metal) or expensive to manufacture and heavy (metal and glass) or even brittle and somewhat dangerous (glass but also metal with sharp edges). We still use paper and some metal for a lot of food packaging today, but it's always mixed with plastic. Plastic bag inserts, plastic coating on paper packaging, plastic film to act as a barrier between the food and the paper, etc. Even the lowly paper coffee cup is coated with PTFE to make it waterproof!