emes, you are right to consider issues on their observable merits. Then, there is a hope to figure them out.
for example, fossil fuels made our cities so much cleaner – comparing with the horses that previously occupied and polluted the streets. When you have something even cleaner – and cheaper – everyone will switch to that. “Cheaper” is important – expensive means spending more resources on producing that thing.
And also need to take reality into account – look at Germans who went off their gas and coal, and clean nuclear energy and depended instead on buying cheap Russian gas while growing their “clean” resources – while also enjoying cheap dirty energy that was critical for their manufacturing exports – and not spending enough on defense. I think their behavior is more dangerous to the world than eating from plastic plates.
similar thing may be with some recycling: China used to buy it, now I think it does not, and there is no reasonable way to deal with it. My info may be outdated though.