My ex-husband and his father owned a very profitable diaper service. I think it was P&G who started marketing disposable diapers first. They gave them, absolutely free to hospitals, as a very effective marketing technique. That put the kibosh on diaper services, which laundered and delivered diapers to families with babies.
A friend of mine remembers when Pittsburgh steel mills caused so much pollution that it was black outside during the day. My husband, who read a lot about that situation, said the mills refused to spend money to upgrade their systems, and that's part of why they went out of business. At some point during the black days period, it was possible to seriously curtail the pollution. We have a steel mill in our town, and something that looks like white smoke comes out their chimneys. There is no odor, and there is not much of it compared to the old days.
The average boomer didn't have much to do with low gas mileage on cars, pollution from steel mills, disposable diapers, bottled water, etc. Corporations did, and the boomers used what was available to them, and did the work that was available to them, too. Back then, corporations were not "people".
I still can't figure out why stores switched to plastic bags. We shop at Aldi a lot, and use their paper bags, or I bring the plastic bags I've saved from other grocery stores. In my view, paper bags work just as well.
Also, I get tired of younger people viewing our heyday through the lenses of today. "It was a different time" holds no water with them. Funny, all the ones I know can't imagine having only one bathroom (unless they live in a one-bedroom apartment), having only one TV, one phone, only one car for a family, no computers, no calculators, no ballpoint pens, getting books from the library, glass bottles, drinking from the tap, etc.
Even I cannot imagine how we could have fed our dog Gaines Burgers and Kennel Ration dog food. The dogs I've had in my adulthood have eaten much better food. Yet Susie, our wire-haired terrier, lived for 19 years on that diet. She was backyard bred, too, but today one has to be careful about that because so many purebred dogs have genetic histories that are mess, thanks in part (IMO) to breeders who'd rather have a show dog than a healthy one.
I tested our tap water and it is just fine. Yet we have a water purifier, and my daughter drinks water only from plastic bottles. I bought the purifier so she would drink tap water; she didn't. She did use paper bags from Aldi, so that is a redeeming feature.
Am I perfect? Far from it! I do, however, do my part, environmentally, to the best of my ability.