What are the features of good packaging?

Given advances in paper pulp packaging why isn't plastic packaging just made illegal by supermarket retailers?

• Looking at the heinous "Great Pacific Garbage Patch", the many decades it takes to breakdown plastic rubbish landfill, and advances in paper pulp packaging, why isn't plastic packaging abandoned by supermarkets retailers? I'm bias because I'm in the paper pulp industry, but it still astounds me that after everything we know about the environment impact of plastic packaging, why don't supermarkets easily replace plastic packaging with paper pulp alternatives.

• Answer:

  Making anything "illegal" is expensive - you have to legislate it, police it, inspect it, enforce it, prosecute the offenders, house the criminals, pay lawyers to defend the offenders who can't afford to get a lawyer, defend the statue in front of the Supreme Court and justify its constitutionality, etc. Although I agree that plastic trash is a big environmental disaster for all living things on earth, I'm not a fan of solving social issues through heavy-handed legislation. We already have 50% of black men and 40% of white men arrested at least once on non-traffic-related crimes by the time they turn 23.  This is an insane way to run a country - instead of promoting good behavior and more education, we just throw everybody in jail while they are still young. If there is social consensus that the environmental damage can not be mitigated, just put a "sin tax" on it, like with most of the luxury goods, alcohol, tobacco, etc.  We can use the "sin tax" to clean up the plastic trash pile.