Right. So it’s hard to say. Stuff that you’d buy anyway (like food, cars, etc.) it’s probably a huge environmental win. Cars are sooo much lighter now, I have to imagine plastics are a part of that. A whole lot of a car is plastic, fiberglass, etc that used to be metal, so probably big savings both in manufacturing and fuel. When you refloor your house with LVP instead of ceramic tile might be another example.

But people buy cheap plastic garbage they throw out that probably just would not exist if plastic didn’t.

I’d guess overall it’s a win for the environment, though it’s very unevenly distributed in any case. It’s obviously much worse for pollution in the ocean, for instance.

Also fun fact: it was originally developed to replace ivory in billiard balls and without that we probably wouldn’t have elephants left.