Most plastics only break down into smaller bites of plastic. There are microplastics found in animal's livers everywhere on the planet including those in the deepest oceans. We have no idea what the long-term effect of this is. How can it be ok? Concentrations will only get higher as we pour more waste plastics into the system.
There's more to this equation than the relative cost of recycling vs creating new.
I’m certainly not an environmentalist, more of a conservationist, but I think microplastics are a bigger potential long term threat.
Fortunately, I think that a technical solution to that is far more reachable in the next decade or two than the pie in the sky Global Climate Change BS that is being thrown around.