This is actually a known economic problem that has been repeated with grazing commons in england and fishing reefs, plastics have a significant cost externality[1] that isn't being identified in current pricings and needs to be added by governments (or whatever) to account for their "real cost".
Exactly! Thanks for the link. We were discussing this in the context of the reduction of oil consumption world-wide eventually leading to higher cost of plastics overall and which areas could it have a large effect.
Because of that, we treat plastic things as disposable, which is how most of plastic waste is produced.
There is a very simple way to address plastic pollution: make plastic expensive again. Even a minor measure like a 10-cent tax on a bag is disproportionately effective.
To put it in context, if you forgot how much we are willing to pay for a bag, stop by a bag store.
An expensive application of plastic (medical, etc) won't be affected much, if at all, by a plastic tax.
So I still don't know why we're not doing it big time. Oh wait, I do know, it's greed[1]. As usual, the profits from such misuse if plastics will be privatized, and the losses socialized (we'll all pay for cleanups with tax money and/or suffer from pollution).
[1]https://www.bizjournals.com/memphis/news/2019/01/08/plastic-...