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The way that it is done now, yes it's basically a giant scam. However, I saw a documentary recently at the IMAX called Fungi where they demonstrated that certain types of mycelium have been found to grow on / break down plastic, and could (in theory at least) be used to effectively deal with our plastic waste issue. Pretty fascinating actually.
By the way, if you ever have the opportunity to see that film, do it, and get absolutely blazed as shit beforehand you will have a great, great experience.
Great point, fungus is the best among us. I never cease to be amazed by what they can accomplish!
I think for long-term solutions to the plastic problem, it would be better to use a replacement for petroleum-based plastics, such as natural polymers, than to try to make it so petroleum-based plastics were viable in the long term. There are a lot of challenges to overcome in the area of alternative plastics, but I know some people working on this problem and there seem to be promising candidates. I believe it's only a matter of time and research before we have viable alternatives that are affordable, biodegradable on a short time-scale, and viable replacements for the petroleum-based plastics currently used.
While I think it's a technology issue now, I also think it will largely become an issue of gaining widespread adoption across the vast diversity of industries using single-user plastics today. There's also the problem of how degradation of such polymers will affect the environment when used on such a large scale, but I'd include this in the technology phase as something we could probably figure out, but if adoption was quick enough, we may not have this figured out yet.
Yeah I saw a post the other day about Chinese scientists developing biodegradable bamboo-based plastic alternative. Widespread adaption of it of course will be challenging because of entrenched power of fossil fuel companies, but also small business tyrants whining about cost-per-unit. But if they're able to make it more affordable than petroleum based plastics then that would be a huge win.
I found a YouTube link in your comment. Here are links to the same video on alternative frontends that protect your privacy: