I looked long and hard for other decking. It comes down to pressure treated, which has its own environmental issues and looks absolutely awful no matter what you do to it, or exotic hardwoods ripped from the rainforest. And all the wood decking requires regular maintenance with things like poly, which is just another kind of plastic.

Outside of the small amount of construction dust, which contractors could mitigate if we pushed it, the plastic deck systems aren't shedding plastic at any appreciable quantity, last a really long time, don't contribute to tropical rain forest degredation, and don't require frequent applications of chemicals that just wash off the deck every year or two.

And don't forget that you have to actually work with a contractor, and if you get into exotic, hard to use materials many contractors will turn down the job. I looked at black locust decking and it was impossible to source, didn't come in the historic porch flooring style I wanted, cost about 3x as much, and my contractor wouldn't even consider using it.