There are multiple questions here, among them:
- is the use necessary (can we do without what the plastic is doing)?
- is plastic the best material for the job?
- is the value worth the cost?
Much packaging, for example, is “necessary” only for the convenience of business. For the consumer, it’s often an inconvenience (those armour-plated clamshell things spring to mind).
To packaging again. Does it need to be transparent? Does it need to be impenetrable to anything less than a power saw (or a bazooka)?
Take toothpaste. It’s packaged in a tube. Once the tube was metal, these days it’s plastic. Why? Probably because plastic is cheap. Why is plastic cheap? Because the price of purchase does not reflect the full life-cycle costs.
There is quite obviously an alternative to plastic for this use. The question is, do we need that use? Can toothpaste be packaged some other way? Maybe a reusable syringe?
The next question is, do we need toothpaste? For thousands of years before the invention of toothpaste, people cleaned their teeth. There are numerous recipes for tooth powder on the Internet.
Has Choice ever tested tooth powders and compared them to toothpastes?
If you make your own, then you can at least be sure that it contains no microplastics.
