Completely agree with all the sentiments on this thread. But I don't believe anything will change without legislation, and for that we need a government who care for the environment more than their business cronies.
Every time I see a discarded coffee cup or plastic bottle I think of how the corporations like Starbucks, nestle etc are getting away from any of the responsibility of the mess and damage their products cause. And how our governments have prioritised the needs of corporations over simple things like litter bins, litter collectors, recycling facilities and numerous other things that would improve the environment. Individual action alone will not be enough.
Please read The Affluent Society by the economist JK Galbraith. It was written nearly 60 years ago but the basic gist is that American (and western) society's measure of success is based on endless productivity and unsustainable growth. I read it earlier this year and couldn't believe the prescience of it. In it he says
"American demand for goods and services is not organic. That is, the demands are not internally created by a consumer. These such demands - food, clothes, and shelter - have been met for the vast majority of Americans. The new demands are created by advertisers and the "machinery for consumer-demand creation" that benefit from increased consumer spending. This exuberance in private production and consumption pushes out public spending and investment."
He called this the dependence effect, a process by which "wants are increasingly created by the process by which they are satisfied".
Another memorable passage from the book;
"The family which takes its mauve and cerise, air-conditioned, power-steered and
power-braked automobile out for a tour passes through cities that are badly paved,
made hideous by litter, blighted buildings, billboard and posts for wires that
should long since have been put underground. They pass on into a countryside that has been rendered largely invisible by commercial art. (The goods which the latter advertise have an absolute priority in our value system. Such aesthetic
considerations as a view of the countryside accordingly come second. On such
matters we are consistent.) They picnic on exquisitely packaged food from a portable icebox by a polluted stream and go on to spend the night at a park which
is a menace to public health and morals. Just before dozing off on an air mattress,
beneath a nylon tent, amid the stench of decaying refuse, they may reflect vaguely
on the curious unevenness of their blessings. Is this, indeed, the American
genius?”
This was written in 1958.
As individuals I believe that we all need to take responsibility but it will take a massive societal shift before any real change will come about. I hope to see it in my lifetime.