And nature (maybe with our hand) will catch up. It's playing cat and mouse with a mouse that stands still once the plastic is produced.

"and continue to provide what we want", you mean? It's not the companies that are the (sole) problem.

I don't know. For a while the major toothpaste companies were putting plastic beads in toothpaste as grit. I would say that's a company issue.

It's the 21st century version of lead in makeup.

I'm certain in 100-150 years it will be viewed in the same way.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Victorian-era_cosmetics

The problem is the system. You can expect one or two persons to act rational, but at the scale of 100s, 1000s, millions, it's just crowd dynamics following statistical processes, just as the market itself is.

If we want anything to change, we need systemic changes to what behavior is incentivized by the world we live in - and I can not think of anything that would do the job other than abolishing or at least heavily restraining capitalism.