It's a conspicuous part. But energy use is still a problem. Like, maybe high-kicking people throwing trash everywhere would be cheaper solution then letting them do it, but with paper instead of PET. If we won't calculate we can't be sure

Personally I think this problem is being solved the right way from a systems perspective.

Energy production is centralized, so the benefits of it becoming cleaner is spread as soon as it arrives, whereas single-use plastic pollution is diffuse, with compounding damage.