Unfortunately, these have turned into the biggest plastic packaging lobby and have caused an explosion in the use of plastic packaging in retail. More plastic use is unfortunately a net benefit to those whose economic/financial incentives depend on it.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atrocities_in_the_Congo_Free_S... -- "... The collection of hands became an end in itself. Force Publique soldiers brought them to the stations in place of rubber; they even went out to harvest them instead of rubber ... They became a sort of currency ..."
As for the reference you provide, note that the atrocities were at the time when private companies using private militias ruled the region that was the property of a private holding of Leopold of Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld who at the time also was the King of Belgium.
It was the Belgian state learning of these atrocities that prompted Belgian state to annex the region and bring these to a halt.
It could be argued that indeed the public sector should have learned not to trust the murky amalgam of old and new capital