Your six year old source itself states that in 2017, China stopped the import of foreign garbage. Meaning plastic pollution will have dropped in the six years since your source was published.
More importantly though, it wasn't even necessarily China's waste. Rich, Western nations like the one you're (likely) commenting from have sent their plastic waste to China, where it ends up in the sea. And you use that for justification that "using less plastic doesn't matter", and that it's "mostly virtue signaling".
Nah, it is mostly local plastic from what I can tell. And I come from a country which is a net importer of waste, not exporter. And China is not the issue, it is mostly the Phillipines. We cannot solve this other than by payibg for and forcing a couple of countries to solve their issue.
More importantly though, it wasn't even necessarily China's waste. Rich, Western nations like the one you're (likely) commenting from have sent their plastic waste to China, where it ends up in the sea. And you use that for justification that "using less plastic doesn't matter", and that it's "mostly virtue signaling".