[dkastner]

While it's true there are more sources of plastic other than fossil fuels, the big disadvantage is the extra amount of energy and water needed. I doubt we'll be able to scale alternative plastics to match the levels produced from fossil fuels. But I do think we can get a lot of plastic from simply recycling it (maybe dig it back up from landfills). We can also reduce a lot of plastic demand by using reusable containers for things like groceries.

[_delirium]

Automated sorting tech is becoming practical in more scenarios now as well, which should improve yields on recycled plastic. Traditional human-based sorting into bins by type of plastic often produces poor-quality output that has to be "downcycled" (e.g. into park benches, not a new coke bottle), because the percentage of mis-sorted impurities is too high.