There are several such inventions in the world, last time I heard one was in USA. It's quite simple, just boil the plastic or rubber in hot water under pressure and it will split polymers on petrol. Depending on how much electronics and regulations you put into it, the better it is, but even a kitchen pressure cooker will suffice.
Most notably, one family friend developed a portable unit capable of this depolymerization process. It was a middle-sized trailer on two wheels, in which you could put plastic bottles cut to pieces and the output was heat (40 KW I think), electricity (20 KW) and CO2. He used some special jets for gasoline vapors, so the burning was extra clean and efficient.

But, to produce this he founded a company and he used the value of the patent itself as a founding capital. Because he had it evaluated quite generously, his company suddenly appeared like fourth richest in national trade register, that got him attention. This man was quite an idealist, anti-monopoly, anti-oil-lobby, he would never sell his invention, he wanted to produce it and sell it to as many people as possible. 

But, the oil lobby did two things. They paid another evaluator to evaluate his invention on about 1/10 of the previous value. And then they sued him for illegal enrichment, and that he wanted to sell the patent for the original high price. He escaped and was hiding for some time, he was even in TV where he demonstrated the depolymerization process for the reporters. It doesn't only work with plastics, but also with biologic waste like sawdust.
But eventually the police got him and now he's sitting in jail. So much for freedom, science, new sources of energy and free market.

     Well,first off this is no real surprise,duh.What I was referring to was the ease in which this process makes oil from trash ! In my opinion that is killing two birds with one stone. I'm not one that wants us to stop using oil all together,I think that it is used for a lot of unnecessary things in our society. Scientist rate civilizations on "their way of using resources",and when your still using oil for a lot of our energy needs,it puts us at 0 . Being as technology has showed,energy can be derived from many sources,but due to financial intervention by Big Oil,our needs are not in their interest,only theirs.So we still use their commodity,as the Earth atmosphere heats up.    

While looking through my new yarn catalog last night, I discovered that they are making yarn from recycled plastic. Advertised as 'eco-friendly' and with a higher retail price than the other synthetic yarns.

There is also yarn from recycled cotton and processed corn called Cot 'n Corn. Yarn from bamboo is a big seller with the younger crowd, too.

Buying eco-friendly is a nice idea but, until they find an economical way to recycle plastic, I won't buy it.

Plastic is mostly carbon- atomic number 6, and a little hydrogen.

Oxygen is the other component in CO2, and comes from the atmosphere during combustion.  Oxygen- atomic number 8 is not only heavier than carbon, but the atom is dominant in the CO2 molecule by a factor of two.

He said it requires electricity, though if it's well insulated it could be substantially less than the energy obtained from the oil.

His point was that, rather than throwing it away (particularly in these third world countries), the plastic can be used as fuel, displacing virgin oil which would have the be imported, and resolving the waste disposal problem that some small or undeveloped countries face.

I don't think he has claimed anything to the contrary.  He's cracking the plastic back into oil so it can be used for energy presumably more efficiently than burning the plastic.

What I would be interested in is a side-by-side comparison of the efficiency of the machine plus the resultant oil, compared with burning the plastic directly using a sterling engine to produce whatever work is desired.  Since the oil is liquid (and becomes gas quite easily), my guess is that the improved fuel-air mixture of the more volatile oil would allow higher temperatures and improve efficiency over a solid fuel burn.  It's probably enough to make up for the electricity, though I'm skeptical of the costs of these machines that do the job; they have to hold high pressure and have very efficient insulation- cheaping out there could not only be wasteful, but dangerous.

Why did this get moved here?  I generally only hang out in general, so I probably won't reply to this again on my own.  If for some reason this turns into a more interesting discussion and I'm 'needed', somebody will have to ping me.

Well, the latter is more of the issue.  The issue is that this requires more manual sorting and such than would probably be worth the cost.

That's not to say it's any more difficult to put the plastic in this thing rather than the trash were it in your own home, and it probably is ultimately feasible in Africa.  Of course, in the latter case the cost of the machine itself is going to be the limiting factor, and as I mentioned before, it probably wouldn't be cheap.  However, it could be like solar panels, and be donated for humanitarian purposes to get a steady supply of fuel for a school or hospital.

This will likely remain a niche product.

I was skeptical when I saw it was some old Japanese guy, but the science is legit and this guy seems to know what he's talking about, plus or minus accuracy for translation.  If he gets the cost down, this could be very helpful to the third world (who don't mind sorting garbage all day for a few liters of surplus oil).

The important thing to learn from this is to not evaluate claims before you actually listen to them

     Thanks for posting the whole process, I'm going to visit that place, I live in Philly,but I have never heard of this place until now.    It (the second video) is to hard for me to watch (i don't speak Japanese) and watching just the pictures help,but it is still very annoying.