Can someone help me to undersand ......

There are many things that I don't understand in spite of my best efforts...here are two such examples.
Yesterday I was in a seminar on Green Production and Consumption. One of the speakers questioned the "greenness" of giving plants in plastics pots as mementos....his contention was that the plants ought to have been given in fired-clay (terracota ??) pots rather than in plastics, as plastics are injurious to environment. I am tired of such arguments, not based on any LCA...the plastic in question is recyclable and its life as a pot is quite long (at least 5 years), whereas the fired-clay pot had consumed quite a lot of energy in terms of the firing process, obviously letting out quite a lot of gaseous emissions in the open and has a short life, say about two years/three years. It can also break in case of impact or stress. It appears that the life-cycle environmental impact of the fired-clay pot is much higher than the plastics pot. People say that plastics are not biodegaradable; so are the mud pots, fired-mud pots etc. Children are taught that plastics are not good for environment....can anyone live in this world without plastics now? Everything from the umbrella you hold over your head to the sole of your shoe is made of plastics. I am not able to understand this mindless campaign against plastics, which is often carried out by "uneducated" activists.
Another thing I cannot understand with my best efforts is the greenness of the battery powered car. Common sense tells me that the direct use of primary energy souce (e.g. petrol) leads to high efficiency; instead of petrol if I use a battery, it means that I use a secondary energy, i.e. electricity, store it and then use it for running the car..how can this be an efficient car ? If one considers the transmission and distribution losses (which are very high in countries like India, to the extent of about 40 %) of electricity, I cannot imagine how a battery powered car is considered a green car (if the battery is a lead-acid battery, then issues of lead weigh against the car being called green)..Of course if the battery is charged by solar or wind power, the car indeed can be considered as green. I would be happy to learn from anyone the argument for battery powered car as a green car.