[RobertRoberts]

You have hit the crux of the matter, it's almost entirely outside our control at the local level. Not using plastic as much has no effect on whether or not an Asian man throws his garbage in the river in China, or if the company contracted to deal with the waste does, but lies about it to us.

What you are proposing ends up as "don't do business with Asian countries because they can't be trusted to deal with the trash properly."

It's really easy to find photos of waterways all over the world, and it's abundantly clear which countries and cultures value clean water ways over cost/time to deal with the garbage. Where it comes from seems to be irrelevant.

[erw1]

I think all cultures value nature to one degree or another. Once developing countries accrete enough wealth, they will probably invest some of it into proper waste disposal. It's hard to justify diverting resources into waste disposal now, when you are still poor and hungry and in the midst of industrialization.

Western societies went through the same process. They polluted heavily through much of the XX century, while building up their own industrial economies, and didn't start cleaning up until the 1970s and 80s.

I am hopeful developing countries follow the same trajectory. China, for example, has been successful at tackling its air pollution. And googling shows that they began rolling out programs to combat river pollution as well. Eventually, we'll get there. Not soon, but eventually.