Plastics are the best invention of human history. Plastics are the worst invention of human history. From cars to airplanes, electronics to medical equipment, furniture, and food packaging, plastic permeates every aspect of our lives. Its production skyrocketed – from just 2.3 million tonnes in 1950 to 162 million tonnes in 1993, which more than doubled to 448 million tonnes by 2015, and half of all plastics ever made have been produced since 2005. The sheer volume of plastic has overwhelmed the waste-management systems all across the world, they have simply reached their saturation point. Today, plastic is present on almost every surface of the planet – from the deepest abysses to the highest mountains and remotest islands – causing an unprecedented crisis for wildlife. It is the durability of plastics that makes them an industry choice for packaging but also makes them a nightmare for the planet. They have become infamous for choking, ensnaring, and poisoning everything from plankton to porpoises. A staggering 79% of whatever plastic is produced in the last 50 years has been directly thrown into landfills or open landfills. The question which arises is how did we end up here? This paper is a comprehensive study about how the plastics and petrochemicals industry of the 1970s and 1980s knew that the world was heading into a global waste crisis and remained quiet and promoted plastics recycling as a solution to this growing problem. In the other half of the paper, we observe a timeline of actions taken by two of the world's biggest economies China and India and see how they have approached their share of this crisis.