Heavily impregnated with BPA. I would avoid putting anything warmer than room temp in there (yes I know they're in widespread use in restaurants)
>I can't imagine plastic wrap being replaced without some special lid (proofing a bread loaf that you want to proof out of the top of the container).
Cheese cloth tied around the lid with plenty of slack in the cloth in the middle
For very long ferments (cold proofing sourdough for example) it’s also liable to dry out.
All other situations it works fine for in my experience.
Cambro will happily sell you polypropylene bins, too. They even stack with the polycarbonate ones.
Sadly, silicon freezer bags have yet to work as well as plastic ones. Give them time.
Relying on natural barriers to keep things from breaking down does limit shelf life, but its not a foreign concept to shoppers or grocery stores.
Polycarbonate is a very useful plastic for food containers ("cambros") because it's lightweight, durable, and can be transparent. Sure, glass could work but it's a lot more fragile, especially if you were to try to constantly stack/unstack them in a commercial kitchen.
To a lesser extent the same argument could be made for polypropylene deli containers (for food storage and kitchen prep, not as disposable food containers).
I use plastic wrap probably more than I should in the kitchen (when baking) which could obviously be replaced by lids that fit whatever containers I'm putting the plastic wrap on but in some applications I can't imagine plastic wrap being replaced without some special lid (proofing a bread loaf that you want to proof out of the top of the container).
I think that's it though. In general, I agree that single-use plastics (or "re-use for a while and eventually throw out") are unnecessary but if something can be used indefinitely (I've had my cambros for something like 5 years at this point and they still look new) then I don't see it as an unnecessary plastic.