The question sounds hyper stupid but hear me out.
We have an underwhelming volume of shit that relies on plastic. Plastic is cheap and versatile. If we replaced the vast majority of it, I presume costs for most products would creep up, and we would also shift our demand for natural resources (such as wood for paper ). Are there enough resources to sustainably replace our current volume of single use plastics? Or would we be sentencing all of our remaining forests to extinction if we did? Would products remain roughly equally affordable?
Let’s imagine we replace, overnight, all single use plastic in this hypothetical scenario with an alternative. All parcels are now mailed in paper; waxed paper if you need humidity resistance. Styrofoam pebbles are now paper shreds and cardboard clusters. No more plastic film, anywhere. No more plastic bags, only paper. No more plastic wrapping for any cookies confectionery, etc; it’s paper and thin boxes like those of cereals. Toothbrushes, pens, and a variety of miscellaneous items are now made of wood, cardboard, glass, metal, etc. The list goes on, but you get the idea.
Is this actually doable? Or is there another reason besides plastic companies not wanting to run out of business that we haven’t done this already? Why are we still using so much fucking plastic?
An oft-overlooked part of this is the fact that it is also a socioeconomic issue. Due to half a century of wage suppression, the diminished purchasing power of the majority of the population would not be able to handle the shift to more durable goods. Wealth/income inequality is a major hurdle for reducing single use plastics and disposable goods.
Ah. Nobody can afford un-enshittified products anymore.
It’s progressive invisible poverty.
Exactly. The actual cost of durable goods tend to be pretty consistent, when corrected for inflation. It’s just that wages are so terrible compared to what they should be, if they were not completely divorced from the value created by labor.