Well, stop and think about all those plastic medical devices that get used. Everything from syringes to hips, to air tubing, to the packaging of sterilized surgical instruments. That's a metric carp tonne of plastics. There are a LOT of life threat level safety devices that use plastics also.
We probably don't need to bottle soda pop or water in plastic bottles, but the use of plastics will never go away.
wouldnt you want to argue for the reduction of consumer plastic, then, so the rest of this super limited resource can be saved for medical and scientific purposes?
I did mention that plastic water bottles and other such consumer level disposable plastics aren't really required. Though the alternatives are much heavier and often bulkier than their plastic counterparts. Making them more difficult and costly to ship. And yeas, that includes basic food stuffs.