We're obsessed with plastic waste because the main input is petrochemicals, the producers of which have a lot of political power. If they didn't, then we'd just implement what the scientists recommended all along (i.e don't use it when you don't need to, use as little as possible, recycle what you use, burn what can't be recycled for energy, charge the producers based on these externalities to incentivize changes at the top of the chain to make all the other steps easier and/or encourage consumers to choose something else).

Similar to how we'd have have dealt with climate change back when crazy environmental radicals like Margaret Thatcher and Newt Gingrich accepted a) that it existed and b) there was a clear path to co-operate on fixing the problem by putting a price on carbon and enforcing global standards.

But then politics happened. And now you could say, "Why are we so obsessed with climate change?" It's almost like a Trillion dollar industry has waged a highly successful misinformation campaign and made what was previously common sense a big debate.

And as far as they're concerned, you thinking "well maybe these hippies are going too far and haven't thought of this drawback" is just as much of a win for them as the guy "coal rolling" a Prius because his political tribe is now pro-pollution, like some kind of absurd parody of a Captain Planet cartoon villian.

For the record, recycling and burning plastic for energy are both better for the planet and economy than landfill. Well, that's the "scientific consensus" but what do those eggheads know, eh? Neither sounds good for the bottom line of fossil fuel companies and so...