Gosh, Wavy, plastic lenses and the flow on into the ocean is a bit of a stretch!
Most of these cheap scopes though are still make of glass and metal. Plastic components are on ALL scopes, cheap and expensive. There are some brands that provide "good" quality instruments, but they are well known in our world as still being a compromise of cheap and quality. But some also provide some real crap with minimal plastic...
I am not justifying retail greed. But it is not reasonable for us on this forum to be all righteous and evangelical by ignoring the realities of the world we live in (commercial, manufacturing and family). We need to keep a sensible perspective on this topic here. There is good that has come about from this cheap stuff, not just bad.
And it really goes without speaking that we SHOULD be weaning ourselves off our dependency on plastic.