This is a classical example of a market failure. The issue is that today, when you you are buying any good, you are not paying for the full end-to-end cost of the item, which includes the cost of disposal (collection, sorting, recycling) and the cost of fixing the issues caused by for example, CO2 emitted during the production process. In other words, everyone of us is enjoying now a large subsidy/handout paid by future generations. This is called a negative externality.
The straightforward - but not easy - solution is to ask governments to assess a charge on each sold item that brings the price in line with the full cost to society.
Note that market failure does not mean that the “market” mechanism is the cause of the failure - rather the issue is the incompleteness of information. Markets would solve this allocation problem very efficiently once the subsidy is removed. I imagine for example that most packaging using non recyclable plastics would become entirely uneconomical, and the full price of gas would be so high that industry will be incentivized to look for alternative technologies and sources of energy.
The straightforward - but not easy - solution is to ask governments to assess a charge on each sold item that brings the price in line with the full cost to society.
Note that market failure does not mean that the “market” mechanism is the cause of the failure - rather the issue is the incompleteness of information. Markets would solve this allocation problem very efficiently once the subsidy is removed. I imagine for example that most packaging using non recyclable plastics would become entirely uneconomical, and the full price of gas would be so high that industry will be incentivized to look for alternative technologies and sources of energy.