Yeah it works. They make polycarbonate sheets (often under the brand name Lexan) with anti-glare coatings (basically once side is slightly roughed up). Same with Acrylic (Plexiglass). Though, if you're going to wet mount, that defeats the purpose of using AN glass or substitutes. The downside to these plastic sheets vs. glass is they scratch easier. A LOT easier. I've tried them and given up on using them for photography due to their ease of scratching. It seems cheaper at first, but in the long run it's going to be cheaper to use glass, as the plastic ones scratch so easily, they're almost one-time use.
I also don't use any AN glass anymore for anything. I struggled with it for a while trying to make it work, but in my experience, it always takes away some of the sharpness and there are better methods out there. For scanning, I wet mount. For enlarging, I use glassless negative carriers and either LED lamps or heat absorbing glass and quick exposure times. If it's a particularly curly negative, I'll tape it down with some of that 3M low tack adhesive tape. For alternative process contact printing, I ignore the Newton rings, as they don't actually show up in the prints. I wanted AN glass to work as it would have been easier to deal with. But I never could get past the lack of sharpness it gave me. It might be alright for some people. But it just didn't work for me.