I may be naive but every time I hear about these efforts I wonder if the microbes might start degrading plastic things we don't want recycled just yet.
Everything needs water, so it'll effectively always be about water management.
Also, if necessary we can add poison to the plastic just for those things that really need it (underground pipes mainly I suspect).
What the world really needs is a strong, light, cheap material that lasts, after water contact, at full strength, about 3 months, and degrades in a couple of years.
I've always wondered if there way a cheap way to engineer cellulose or lignin into a material like this. But it's gotta be really cheap.
(I have some plastic toys from the 1960's that are too fragile to touch. My 1972 Dodge has some synthetic foam insulation under the dash that turns to powder when touched. Maybe we already have the needed technology, it is just forgotten.)
Um. Is it? Whatever happened to: Just because you can doesn't mean you should.
Also, good is subjective. What would be more accurate is: make a material that currently does not breakdown naturally. We know this. But we keep making it instead of reusing what we already have.
Amazing? Or amazingly short-sighted?