What else would you use? Metal? That's not a whole lot better for the environment. "Natural" materials like wood, glass, rubber are not a suitable replacement for many uses of plastic, or would require changes that would overall make it worse.
We could make car bumpers out of wood instead of plastic. Then you'd have heavier cars which use more fuel and are less safe (and more expensive). The amount of waste generated by these uses of plastic is negligible and well worth it when you compare to the alternatives. There are many, many bigger sources of plastic usage & waste which we should tackle first before we focus on durable non-disposable plastics.
For a long time I looked at it this way. But let’s be honest with ourselves: plastic is not going anywhere. It’s too useful and too integrated into the global economy. Oil extraction is energy intensive and environmentally harmful, but so are many other industrial processes. As long as the carbon it contains does not end up on the atmosphere or ocean, I don’t see why we should view plastic differently than aluminum, steel, cement, or ammonia.
