So many things are unnecessarily wrapped in plastic. We use bubble wrap in situations where paper would be a perfectly fine buffer for shipping. We use plastic bags when paper and reusable bags work perfectly well.

I get so frustrated about it not even because I'm scared of the environmental impact of all this plastic floating around, although that does suck, but because plastic is currently absolutely crucial for modern medicine. One day maybe we'll find alternatives but until then I think a rational society would be preserving the limited life-saving miracle material for uses that aren't as basic as "use it to take home groceries, then throw it away."

The point OP is making still holds true in Canada though. I can’t go buy a plastic bag at my grocery store, but the store can use a ridiculous amount of wrap to sell produce, and there are tons of food products where you buy a bag full of smaller bags(and some full of even smaller bags. Pre-made salad is a big one) that I can buy easily and usually for fairly cheap.

Sterile medical supplies already are packed in a paper bag. The ones that are in plastic actually aren't.

Uh... What? Sterile medical instruments are absolutely packed in plastic, paper is too permeable and will lead to contamination. Even if it looks like paper it's still lined with plastic. Have you ever worked in a medical setting before?

My only note here is that canned beverages have a layer of non-recyclable plastic on the inside to prevent chemical interactions between the contents and the metal. Glass bottles are fine though as (aside from plastic labels) they're fully recyclable.

I loathe plastic waste, but here's a conundrum I read about.

Elementary school kids learned about environmentalism, wanted to do better. They got the school to dump plastic utensils and plates in favor of steel. No brainer, right?

Turns out the energy cost for making the steel meant they would have to wash those items 1,000+ times to make up for the plastic energy production. Still, no brainer, right?

Then they added in the energy costs for washing those items 1,000+ times. Not remotely worth doing. (Factor in loss, it's even worse.)

We got ourselves in a hella mess. Getting off plastic is going to mean cheap, clean and abundant energy. I mean shitloads of power. I'm all in for nuclear, at least as a stopgap.

The solution is not perfect though...

Life cycle analysis studies show that some bioplastics can be made with a lower carbon footprint than their fossil counterparts, for example when biomass is used as raw material and also for energy production. However, other bioplastics' processes are less efficient and result in a higher carbon footprint than fossil plastics.