Why do we not have much of a choice? I think our choices are pretty clear.
I was lucky enough to tour a recycling facility about two years ago and it was eye opening. The sheer amount of waste being sent there from just the surrounding area was embarrassing in my opinion, and a pretty good percentage of it was still slated for a landfill due to contamination. This was just one facility in a relatively rural area of Oregon and so if you try to picture that same scene but probably larger and scattered across the US in every major city and cities in-between we generate a lot of waste that mostly goes to landfills. I think there has to be a way that we can try to make a personal choice to help reduce what we throw away in my opinion. I don't think there needs to be a political agenda or political angle to it, it's just being responsible stewards of a place that we are blessed to live in.
Back in the 60's and perhaps early 70's, we used to return bottles for a refund of the charge they assessed to us upon the purchase of the product. We returned everything: milk bottles, orange juice bottles, pop, beer, you name it, and it was returnable.
So yes, we can do that, but I think most would object to hauling twenty pounds of bottles back to the store every week.
True they probably would object, but it also means they could try and figure out what they could sacrifice and reduce the frequency in which they buy those items. Make it an infrequent treat rather than a frequent expectation for example.
When plastic first came out, companies switched because of the work and expense involved with refilling used bottles. After all, the store needs a place to keep those thousands of bottles. A truck driver has to load all those bottles into the truck by hand, has to haul those bottles back to the factory. Then they had to unload all those bottles by hand, put them on various carts, and wheeled to the washing and drying machines. Once again, load the bottles by hand into the various machines, unload them by hand, and take them to the part of the factory that filled the bottles with the beverage. Some bottles had to be disposed of because of chipping or breaking, so inspections had to be conducted before the bottles went on the line to get refilled.
It was just a lot of work and expense even though much more environmentally friendly.