This You-Tube video was forwarded to me by a friend. A Japanese scientist has developed a portable machine to convert plastic trash into usable oil or kerosene. It looks like a great idea. It can be used anywhere, but in third world countries where people have no adequate means to dispose of plastic waste, converting it into a resource could do a lot to get it out of the environment. Take a look at the video. I don’t know why I haven’t heard of it before.
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Sylvia Patience, Author 
Very interesting. I suspect that the reason he emphasizes it as a way of getting rid of waste plastic (which is commendable, and may in at least some circumstances make it justifiable over all), rather than as a viable fuel souce, is that overall the carbon footprint is high, as the energy burned to generate the heat is far in excess of the hydrocarbon energy recovered. That’s the way the world works; energy in, entropy out. I hope I’m wrong; does anyone know more about this?
I know. It sounds too good to be true. But I just looked at the YouTube video again and saw that a multitude of other videos come up about this kind of technology, from a U.S. company that has built very large prototype machines to produce barrels of synthetic petroleum daily, to what looks like an operation in a tent where a man is stirring a pot of cooking plastic.