I'm pretty sure OP wasn't suggesting that we light it on fire or try to recycle it. They were suggesting that we use some of the materials that our biosphere has naturally figured out how to recycle whenever possible. I'd suggest that we increase the price of plastics to try to account for these externalities, similar to what we should do for HFCS (and sugar generally) per your comment.
Plastics' reproductive harm is very well established in marine life and early studies in mammalian life is pretty much in line with it. This stuff is almost certainly very bad, and we're using it for absolutely everything due to its rather fantastic properties and extremely low cost.
Agreed for obesity, there are more significant (and more addressable) causes -- but that's still quite far from "these are inert."
Plastics' reproductive harm is very well established in marine life and early studies in mammalian life is pretty much in line with it. This stuff is almost certainly very bad, and we're using it for absolutely everything due to its rather fantastic properties and extremely low cost.
Agreed for obesity, there are more significant (and more addressable) causes -- but that's still quite far from "these are inert."