Plastic was easy mode. Whatever we come up with to replace it is going to make things shittier somehow. In the form of more expensive processing and probably more exotically produced (harmful to humans working the plant).
I wonder if we really will come up with a replacement at all. Even if the bacteria can digest plastics, I can imagine that it may take N years to fully degrade a 0.125" piece. If N is 10 years, then maybe we just accept that plastics become unusable after 10 years for most applications -- For most of the things I use, I think this would be fine. Plumbing would be a disaster though. But if N is 1 year then ya, I think we'll need something totally new.
Plastics as in "polymers made of small organic monomers" are sort of a universal solution. Nature uses them a lot as well. For the same reasons we do, too.
