Well, the world for it, and it's a word I find myself repeating a lot these days, is - "unsustainable".

We can't go on throwing stuff out all the time and buying more stuff, ultimately we will have to make, either
more recyclable products or more component's products which can be enhanced / swapped out, replaced etc without throwing away the whole thing. A the risk of being an old fart, this is how things used to be - it was called, fixing things. Now things are so cheap, usually because they are made by poorly paid people on the other side of the world, that they are not even worth repairing. Sometimes it is even virtually impossible to replace parts.

My prediction - if we keep on like this - In 150 years, if humans are still around, mining rubbish will be a growth industry.
"Today BR (British reclaims PLC, formerly BP) announced they have struck a major landfill seam next to the site of the
former M74 motorway. The find promises a rich vein of plastics and semi-conductors"

Monbiot is particularly interesting, though some would say alarmist, on the sustainability issue :

http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,3604,866785,00.html

From time to time I find myself wondering, if plastics were a no-no anymore, how would products we are used to in plastic be packaged? Consider the Gilette Gel Deodorant I use every day, quite apart from how the gel is made, it all comes in a plastic pack. Would it be in a cardboard tube? Maybe soft metal like toothpaste used to be like? I am now thinking how scary it is that my step-daughter has never even seen toothpaste in anything other than a plastic tube. How will it be to her generation when this is no longer on? Even a pack of ham is in plastic, it used to be placed on some greaseproof paper in a brown paper bag. Fact is, the second format will be much more convenient to our increasingly elderly population anyway :) Maybe the increasing numbers of old folk will mean out grumpy old (30 something) men politics will be more fashionable??