Sustainable polymers must be the future. A working definition of a sustainable plastic is one that is produced from renewable or recovered or waste feedstocks using energy efficient processes that minimize water use, greenhouse gas emissions, and other forms of pollution. Over its life cycle, a sustainable plastic generates negligible amounts of waste and can be practically recycled, reprocessed, or reclaimed after use. A full life cycle assessment of a new sustainable polymer technology is thus critical to make informed decisions about the potential integrated benefits for society. In early stages of sustainable polymer development, this is often not possible given the focus on the research required to move a potential technology forward. However, there is a clear need to address at least four major questions when developing new sustainable polymers: where do the polymers come from, how are they made, how do they perform in use, and what are sensible end-of-use scenarios. In this presentation, I will present three short stories on polyesters (broadly defined) emphasizing three distinct end-of-use strategies for new these new high-performance materials while also addressing the other aforementioned sustainability pillars. The first section will focus on new compostable aliphatic polyester block polymers that are industrially compostable, the second example will focus on depolymerization to recover monomer from polyesters and polyester-containing polyurethanes, and the final subject will be chemical recycling of designer polyethylenes that include cleavable linkages.