This isn't the case across the globe. Japan's recycling and Singapore's trash policies come to mind immediately but there are sure to be better.
Probably the most common though. Will certainly require a shift in culture for most people on this planet.
> Where once the shopkeeper measured out your purchase now we get single use coffee pods and single use plastic around 4 slices of meat.
The EU has recently voted to remove the use of single use plastics. I do wonder what the overall effect will be but I think policy could change this as well as affect behavior around it.
And that's the issue we run into with human behavior. Developed nations have adapted to a convenience mentality, and tend to use more because they consume more. Changing behavior takes more than awareness, it takes some sort of proxy for force or compulsion. With Singapore for example, they have heavy fines for littering and improper trash disposal. They have achieved cleanliness by mandating it upon their citizens.
Western nations aren't always as amenable to that form of governance as it impedes on someone's impression of their own free will to do as they please. In the case of American politics, I bet we will encounter "I don't want to go through the effort to recycle, and nobody can make me." This is why cultural attitudes and shifts take so damn long to change. Getting everybody on board is a hell of a lot harder than saying "This is what we are doing now because it is good for the planet even though it adds a bit more inconvenience to your life." People go apeshit when the government tells them what to do, even if it's something positive. There's just that much resentment to change that people will choose irrational, illogical action over changing behavior even slightly that would benefit them in the long-run. Only when shit hits the fan do people look around and wonder "So what do we do now?". There are things that must be done, even when the desire to do them is not that high. It's like people have a basic understanding that they could be doing something good, but they still don't do it, because they don't have to.
* We set up consumption targets.
* We set up laws that define the following rule:
If consumption targets are exceeded, any non-first child is taxed at $1000/month until the consumption targets are met again.
It makes more sense to tax things that are polluting (eg. plastic packaging).
Sorry, but the idea that everything can be fixed by draconian regulations imposing arbitrary limits is simply evil. And if implemented (China's one child policy comes to mind), produces more unintended than intended effects. The obvious side effect of your ridiculous idea is that only poor people will have more than one child, because you cannot tax what isn't there.
Since WW2 the developed nations have been systematically throwing away sustainable approaches to literally everything. Where once the shopkeeper measured out your purchase now we get single use coffee pods and single use plastic around 4 slices of meat. Even paper often comes in a plastic pack.
If all humanity were to approach a developed Western lifestyle the planet simply couldn't cope with the current global population. We need an entirely different approach.