I caught the tail end of a broadcast on "Fresh Air" last Friday on garbage that I want to go back and listen to the entire podcast. The snippet I caught was talking about plastics. Apparently originally it was thought (back in the 50's when plastics were new) that they could "save the planet." Bakelite, et. al., very durable, good for piano keys, billiard balls, so no need to kill animals for ivory - radios, telephones, etc. It wasn't envisioned then that a material that pretty much exists forever would end up being primarily used to produce single use, disposal items.:
Like I said, I only caught a snippet and haven't listened to the whole thing, but here is the link as it might be of interest to folks reading here.