"This sounds too cool, let's check HN comments for the disappointment"
You have to put more energy in to get oil out.
Um. And climate change.
They still produce a lot of CO2, though: plastic is still a fossil fuel. From a climate perspective, we’d be better to bury the stuff in the ground than to burn it. And ideally, we’d just produce a lot less plastic in the first place!
It's not great, there's no great solution, the problem is hard on multiple levels. If a solution made sense, people would already be doing it.
Actually from a climate perspective we'd be better off burning the plastic, and reducing how much fresh oil we pump.
I'd rather "bury" if you will, the oil, instead of the plastic.
Btw all these processes aren't as simple. For example decomposing polyethylene produces methane which can leak into the atmosphere where it's one of the worst greenhouse gases of all. If you burn it you "only" produce CO2, which is much preferable. The oil and gas was (semi)-permanently trapped before humans started digging it up without knowing the consequences. Putting waste into a surface dump and covering it with a few meters of soil and maybe some plastic sheets is not the same thing at all. This is not permanent carbon sequestration.
Everyone should consider there are many things we do not understand. In the media we're often presented "experts" who purport to know it all, but it's not true. And many laypeople have strong opinions despite understanding even less.
But beyond that, not all plastics come from crude oil directly. Many plastics, especially baggies and consumer plastics of the type shown in these photos, come from liquids that are removed from natural gas.
Either way, you're certainly dealing with a liquid hydrocarbon of inferior quality. And at the huge energy cost of having refined it twice. I'd be surprised if this provided any net-positive energy. And it's certainly a dirty burning fuel with low BTU per volume.
Why not just burn the plastic directly at this point?
https://wgnradio.com/the-business-of-food-with-steve-alexand...
it's like CO2 is the only impact to the environment that matters. you can always find greener ways to source the energy, but you're not going to find a lot of ways to reduce plastic trash.