Morals and ethics on plastic consumption

Foucault addresses that the underlying truth for the society is engineered by powerful institutions

I recently watched a documentary about the excessive plastic consumption and its potential hazard to our health and the environment. Companies often prefer to manufacture their products in countries like China because of the cheaper costs in labor and less restrictive laws, giving them the advantage to produce and distribute potentially hazardous products. Some legislators claim that the industry is too powerful to challenge; e.g. though existing evidences that indicate that PVC, a common plastic component, is a human carcinogen, political machines still manage their way through producing potentially hazardous plastics. Legislators are mostly relying on scientific tests, to identify plastics' potential hazards, as a basis to create a more restrictive law against production of harmful plastics; however, conducting valid studies is very difficult because of the lack of funding and the long span of time to get a reliable result. Testing the hazards of only 11 chemical components (of plastic) took 10 years to conduct. Thus, crippling the government from passing a law against harmful plastic products. This provide the companies the edge to continue to produce plastic and thus provide us with the plastic we consume. Research indicated that of 500 billion to 1 trillion plastic bags consumed worldwide. It takes 200 years for plastic to decompose and, without a doubt, can be a difficult problem for the environment.

Now here's the question: Let's hypothetically say that everything mentioned above is true (but, by all means it doesn't mean that I'm disregarding the endless benefits plastic brings us) then can we say that Foucault's perspective on truth applies to this?

(and I'm going to implicitly ask you guys to perhaps brainstorm a potential solution to this problem)

To at extent we cannot really implement a law to drastically eliminate these "harmful" plastics since imagining a life without plastic is (at least for now) impossible. Now, to offer a better solution, can we urge the plastic industry to be more transparent with the chemicals/components they use in creating their products so we can at least identify them and choose a less-harmful/non-harmful plastic product? Since we have assumed that all cases above were said to be true, then we can say that it hasn't really been the case since plastic production is still poorly regulated; thus providing us the knowledge that the institution holds the power and can support Foucault's claim. However, let us again assume that to solve this scenario, we will still urge the industries to be more transparent with the chemicals/plastic components that they use in creating their products, and to top that, we will also implement a law to limit our plastic consumption and support further studies to device a more environmental-friendly polymer that will meet all our needs. To spice everything up, we will assume that an average human critter is uninterested to this issue or circumstantially unaware, or perhaps refutes that although the consumption of plastic can be disadvantageous, its benefit is exponentially higher than its detriment. So here comes more questions:

1.) (for the hypothetical critters that refutes that plastics are more beneficial than detrimental) Is it ethical for them to still value the benefits of plastics to the human society even when it can potentially harm the environment and our health? 2.) (on the other end) Can we claim that those who are uninterested are ethical/moral? How about the circumstantially unaware critters? 3.) Do you think that we hold the moral/ethical obligation to maintain a sustainable environment for ourselves and our future generations or should we find it more ethical/moral to prioritize the human needs such as convenience, productivity etc. (whatever needs met by plastic)


I think that I might have presented a really ambiguous/complicated/(whatever criticism you have) case. I am new to philosophy, so I don't really know that much. But I am really curios of whatever you have to say about this, and I am more than happy to learn!