I don't think this is smugness. The "green movement" (not that there is a single point of contact) usually advocates first and foremost for the reduction in consumption before recycling -- step zero is to use less of things, not just use greener alternatives, because even those require natural resources at some stage in their production.

Energy intensive processes used for example to create wind turbines can in the future be replaced by greener alternatives; just because the current solution doesn't immediately improve things in one respect, it can lay the foundations for future improvement. Think of it as rebasing a company's business logic from an old COBOL monolith to a bunch of modern, independent services that someone in 5 years from now has a chance of understanding (just replace "5" years with "50", which brings to mind the nuclear power plants designed in the 60s peppering the western world).

I think the argument for renewable energy would still be valid even if turbines and solar panels were much more expensive to build than traditional varieties, because they are tapping in to renewable energy supplies that make us less dependent on the whims of middle eastern dictatorships. The thing that sells the concept to governments isn't how much energy they require to produce, it's the renewable energy sources they tap into and the diversification of grid supply from monolithic, sparse power plants (and the geopolitics they couple) to local, maintainable facilities.

> No we don't. China just imposed a waste import ban.

JUST imposed. If you follow any municipal news (Australia, Canada, who knows where else) you'll know that the RECENT ban is causing huge issues.

Plastic is also a much lighter packaging material than glass or metal. So a substantial amount of fuel is saved in transportation of goods to retail outlets.

Transportation of other plastic items we didn't need in the first place. A lot of the food we eat didn't have to be packed in plastic if it was stored properly and taken care of. If we cooked our own food more than we do, even more plastic could be left for other usage instead. While we are on the topic we don't need to actually eat as much as we do. We don't have to supersize every portion, we can survive and probably be healthier on a much lower portion per meal.

>No we don't. China just imposed a waste import ban.

Yes, we did. That ban does not invalidate that it was occurring, on a massive scale, up to that point. Right now several nations are amassing a stockpile of materials with no viable destination for it.

>ignoring facts such as the energy intensiveness to manufacture wind turbines and solar panels

First off, energy intensiveness becomes less of an issue as more of the energy supply moves over to renewables. There's more to be concerned about around use of rare/harmful materials and harmful byproducts in the manufacture of panels. Second, I don't see that those issues are being ignored, rather that most people will (reasonably) make the determination that between the tradeoffs available, this option is a good choice. Third, there is a bit of a myth of a 'pure environmentalist' you're conjuring here which I'm sceptical exists in significant numbers. Most people that consider themselves environmentalists are probably fine with 'better' in lieu of 'perfect'.

>conveniently ignore the fact that without the plastics industry, the average quality of life for the average human would be far lower than it is now.

That implies a binary choice where we either have all the plastic products and the extent of modern usage, or we have no plastic products. Again that polarized view is not useful or realistic, most will take a more nuanced view where a world with less plastic use but not no plastic use is preferable. Wanting to reduce or eliminate single-use plastics for things like shopping bags and packaging does not have to also imply that beneficial uses of plastics should be verboten.

>Top it all off, imagine the resources that would get used if the world stopped using plastic and went back to 100% paper, cotton, and glass.

As above, I'm not convinced that the majority of 'environmentalists' are quite as hardline as you imagine, but I'll indulge the idea for a moment:

>That's a lot of trees, plant material and sand. The first two would lead to an increase in fertilizers, which would lead to an increase in chemical runoff.

You've made several leaps here that are not implied by the premise. First, paper and cotton are renewable resources, the renewal of which does not require increased use of fertilizers (in any form, artificial or natural e.g. intervention composting). Allocation of more land mass, yes, plus 'sustainable forests' has been a thing for decades. Even mainstream political views are light years ahead of the naïve position you've put forward here, see the current UK plans to re-forest almost the entire north of England, coast to coast, as a great example. Second, the amounts of materials you're imagining needed to replace plastics, and the single-use behaviours that go along with them are entirely up for debate. This is intrinsically linked to my first point, because what happens when a paper or cotton item is no longer useful and is discarded, even littered in the wilderness? Oh yeah, it decomposes. Becoming.... compost.

>I'm just saying that the green movement is rife with bias and hypocrisy

I don't disagree, but will point out that it's a fallacy to call someone living in a system while also advocating to change that system a hypocrite.

>and the situation is far more complicated than anyone give it credit for.

I do disagree with that assertion. Many people are giving this lots of headspace. Overwhelmingly, the output of those considered positions is messages to the effect that we need to make gradual, incremental improvements in whatever areas we can identify, and that we should do this even when those improvements are less than optimal. The alternative, decision paralysis, cannot be allowed as various windows of opportunity draw to a close.

Throwing shade at any effort to improve simply because it is not entirely 'pure' doesn't advance the discussion and the point is not as novel to proponents as you might imagine.