I agree with much of what you say, but not all because what you suggest as replacements or alternatives don't solve the problem, just change it.
We are not "watched wherever we go" as if we are under individual surveillance; but many people place themselves under genuinely personal surveillance via companies like Facebook.
we have become .... wasters rather than recycle and repaired
True, we do waste far too many much; but few things last for ever. Not everything can be repaired, not all items or their materials can be salvaged, and that rather vague term "recycle" has always been taken to mean of the materials not items.
modern inventions such as plastic is destroying our world / due to our neglect of our natural world and we are causing the extinction of our wild life
Plastics are not that modern! They have been around for getting for 100 years; but what class and species of plastics, and in what physical forms? Without plastics one thing would be impossible, and that is being able to discuss it like this! Yes, we could keep to metals, woods, stones, plant fibres, rubber, animal glues, leather, etc.; all natural materials but usually replaced by one type of plastic or another for very good reasons including nowadays the sustainability and availability of the natural alternatives.
I am afraid I regard the part I have divided by the '/' sign as a non-sequiteur. We
are doing those things but
not by modern inventions. Mankind has been destroying the natural world since the Bronze Age, if not before; and in some ways more so than nowadays. Besides, what do you class as a "modern invention" that is not simply a development of something invented at least 100 years ago? There are very few, and still fewer that are intrinsically harmful to the natural world.
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You describe the wast of wood. Yes, a huge amount is wasted, but most timber used for building and furniture is crop-wood. Some countries do have a serious problem with forests being felled illegally, and they seem unable or unwilling to stop it; but most of the wood used now has been grown for it.
I don't know about your "Re-cycling Centre" (yes it is a rather pretentious, cod-science term, but it is not a "rubbish dump") but my County's have re-use areas for items that can be sold for a few quid; and in my local two the land-fill skips are only two or three among nearly twenty salvage skips; and the "garden wastes" ones are another two or three.
However, a lot of good furniture etc. is destroyed because no-one wants it, not even charities set up to re-home it. I was told that by a rubbish-clearance operator I saw smashing up furniture he was clearing from a house; when I remarked that I was surprised the home sellers or buyers had not tried to sell it.
I think the biggest waste is of electrical and electronic items. Most are genuinely not easily repairable, or not repairable at all, especially by the owner; but a lot of it is scrapped for entirely spurious reasons like fashion or "must have" motives. Fortunately their
materials are at least partly recoverable: perhaps 95% of a motor or a washing machine, perhaps <20% of a portable telephone but the latter does contain valuable rare minerals.
This is exactly why the recyling-centres you dismiss exist. It's clearly not sensible to assume the manufacturers can recover and salvage their own products beyond refurbishing complete goods in fair condition (that includes the PC I am typing this one!); but what does happen broadens the scope of what scrap-metal breakers and building-materials salvors have been doing for centuries.
Whether it always works properly is another matter, but there is no sensible other way to recover re-useable materials than collection-points from which the materials can be sold to their appropriate processors. All metals are recoverable, so is glass. Wood and its products can only be chipped, pulped or burnt but at least making new work from wood-chip board is a form of recycling. Building rubble can only be crushed for hardcore - or used as inert landfill. Oils and oil-based paints can only be processed into fuel-oil at best.
Some plastics can be salvaged, but not all. Perhaps the biggest headache is what do with the vast amount of scrapped glass- and carbon- fibre products in the world; from building parts, vehicles, boats, electronic circuit-boards stripped of their metals, etc. Oh, including wind-turbine blades.
Garden waste is turned into compost for sale as that, or use on the county's municipal gardens.
The point is that whilst we are undeniably profligate overall, wasting vast amounts of material on things we do not really need or are suitable for just one short-term use, we cannot possibly re-use everything! Most man-made items wear out beyond recovery or become obsolete eventually; including whatever you read this one, your clothes, your car, most of your household belongings. This is as true of major works too: ships, aircraft, many buildings, etc.
It is also true that much of that waste is generated by manufacturers and shops pushing what they convince us "we all" need; but they are slowly becoming more thoughtful about this. Yet they cannot be blamed entirely. They would not sell all those container-loads of Chinesium gee-gaws if no-one wanted to buy them!
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Sooner or later, we will have no petroleum or coal; either by depletion or by ill-informed choice based on a single criterion which although vital, it is not the only one to consider. Several years ago BP forecast the world's known reserves of both minerals running out, petroleum first, within this Century, at present rates of discovery and extraction. I don't know what revisions they might have made to this; but it is inevitable eventually.
With what will we replace the materials their by-products give us? Metals, stones, and plant and animal products. Replacing or re-using them will be not be any easier than at present - harder if anything. Much of the genuine everyday products and services we rely one and tend to take for granted will become difficult, rare and costly or even just not feasible. With what consequences for both society and the "environment"?
I don't expect groups like Extinction Rebellion to understand such matters. I doubt most of them even know energy from power, iron from steel or the engineering definition of "efficiency". Do though, those who should understand them - the policy-makers?
