When I visited Tokyo a few years ago, I enjoyed the convenience of the vending machines and the fact they have 7-11/Lawson/Family Mart convenience stores on every downtown block. It was a bit concerning to see the huge amount of plastic bottles being consumed. I read that in the past, they would ship them to China for recycling but China no longer wanted to be a part of that trade. It seems to me there should be a better alternative to plastic bottles. I know it is convenient and is safer/lighter to carry than glass. I would hope by now, we would have invented a paper bottle with wax liner or something similar that can replace all the plastic bottles.
As I said, sometimes plastic has the advantage. For example, say you ride a bicycle and you carry a plastic water bottle in your pants cargo pocket (as I do), then if or when you crash to the ground it won't shatter as glass does. Same for beaches, broken glass amongst the sand is not a good combination.
These are good uses for plastic—especially if bottles have an effective deposit on them. (Even if you own a refillable bottle and consider it a permanent fixture, it too will ultimately be returned for the deposit at the end of its useful life).
It's not a matter of banning plastics, it's all about implementing clever regulations that protect the environment. Trouble is corporate and vested interests will fight us every inch of the way to stop them from being introduced.
On the matter of alternatives to plastic (and glass), this is difficult if we want to get rid of plastics altogether as presently there's not much to choose from for liquids other than aluminum or steel cans but they're also a good choice being easily recyclable (and the deposit system works well with them too).
Drink containers, whilst a big problem, can easily be solved with the deposit system. A much harder issue is the inappropriate use of plastics and that mainly takes two forms, (a), using cheap or the wrong type of plastic in applications where it breaks and thus is disposed of inappropriately, and (b), its use in packaging. Most packaging can be made from other non-plastic materials (cardboard, etc.) which are very satisfactory and environmentally friendly (as was done in the past).
