Such a weird take.
Capitalism only optimizes to increase profit. If waste is profitable, it will be very wasteful, especially if the downsides of this waste can be externalized.
This is obvious in terms of pollution and physical waste, but given the perfect perverse incentives, it will also waste human brainpower, opportunity cost, et cetera and so forth.
Minimizing physical waste isn’t always a good thing. Take it to an extreme to illustrate: one million engineers spend their whole careers to make a platinum toaster that will last billion years.
On the other extreme: one engineer slaps together a plastic toaster that breaks when you put the bread in.
Somewhere in between those two is an optimal point. We have to balance our energy, resources, brainpower, time, physical waste, and optionality effectively.
That balancing point is the perfect toaster, it makes a ton of profit, it doesn’t break before one use, and it doesn’t last forever either.
Things like a carbon tax, or making especially dirty companies clean up their own pollution.
This aligns minimum total economic waste, which includes environmental damage, with maximum profit.