Well, the more I think about it and the more I look into it, “better” is likely not the best term.

What it would achieve is a likely decrease in harms that aren’t controlled.

The stuff that would replace plastics, where it’s possible, all come with their own environmental impacts. But, they’re easier to control, so are also easier to minimize or mitigate.

That comes with a price, though. Monetary mostly, but also in reshaping our expectations of things like food storage. Not that we could entirely do away with even single use plastics, much less longer term uses.

But, as an example of what I’m talking about with different more than better.

We switch everything we can from plastics to glass. Bottles, whatever. So, you’re increasing the costs of transportation, right? It’s heavier, you can’t pack as much in the same space. That increases energy use, no matter if it’s diesel in a truck tank, or via power. But, if we also switch even more to EV trucks and trains, that’s still a net positive because now that energy can be better regulated, reducing pollution alongside the reduction in plastic pollution.

But, now you’re going to need more bottles of glass. That’s more energy to make per bottle (can’t remember the numbers, and I’m too tired to go digging), though not a huge amount. You also can’t perfectly recycle a bottle without some new materials, and you’ve also now got an increased demand in silicates for new and recycled. So now the sand is even more in demand, and there’s a shortage of it. Luckily, the transportation costs of raw materials is roughly the same, on average.

But, again, at least the sand issue is tighter. Easier to control for than random plastic shit blowing everywhere.

So, it’s a net positive in terms of reducing the impact of plastics on the environment because that impact is more dangerous as well as less predictable. But it isn’t necessarily better just because it isn’t plastic. It’s a trade off weighted with that specific goal. If there was a magic wand to guarantee all used plastics be centralized and consolidated, the balance of things isn’t a net positive, it’s just a difference in what problems are occurring.

That ends up applying to pretty much every replacement material for a given use. Swapping out plastic films for waxed paper means you’re now increasing paper production, and that needs more trees. Swapping plastics out for paper in shipping protection is the same. Swapping out to metals brings the same weight issues as glass, and adds mining problems.

There’s always a price to pay. You can’t have the benefits of a modern world without some cost to the environment.

But, yeah, we haven’t started a serious switch because plastics are petroleum and there’s a shit ton of money and power tied up with that. It’s entirely doable, though it would take time and cost a shit ton. Eventually, we would cut plastics in the environment down to a level that’s more acceptable, and maybe even low enough to be unimportant (not that anyone has figured out what that would be yet afaik; we just know the shit is everywhere and causing trouble). But it has to start at the top, not from the bottom. Trillions of dollars are involved, and that kind of money wins, period.