Yes, it is destructive distillation with no oxygen. A closed retort system with fractional distillation. The tricky part is the “tightly” regulated temperatures.
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Ben Petersens new wastebot is about using plastics … I’ll see if I can find a link to a off of what he’s doing
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It feels as a deja vu to me … must have seen something similar i guess 
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It looks like he is using a charcoal gasifier to heat plastic and oil waste. It sounds like it is going to work as good as his tarmaker.
Ben Petersen has a good gasifier design. It is only as good as the one operating it. We call it the other 75%.
Bob
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IThis is a great idea turning plastic too oil, and well worth the thread time, though for me it seems it might be easyer too turn plastic intoo chunks just heating enough too mold the plastic intoo chunks 2×2 board then cut and burn in gasifier or. Mold axe, hammer handles ect. With less time involved and energy spending, and still be cleaning up the plannet, and not waisting energy.
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Hey, I’m really glad I found this thread. I have been looking intot his for about a year and a half now. We have been looking to find some micro-enterprise solutions to the plastic problem. Espeacially for dissimenation in the developing world at local scale.
Excited to read all the posts. Thanks for all the links.
We are planning to make a “brick press” using rocket stoves for heat and a batch hopper with a simple, long hydraulic cylinder to press partially melted plastic jugs into building blocks. I haven’t quite figured out the anvil/extraction process yet. Requires quick turn around and some sort of rapid cooling process, But I’m glad others are working on the issue too.
We have been collecting recycled plastic for almost 2 years now. One issue is volume. Experimentation takes room, not just for experiments, but also to store large quantities of materials.
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I don’t think you can control the temperature well enough with a rocket stove. It is usually a pretty narrow range and fairly low temperature.
What you are talking about is plastic injection molding though something more like this:
A lot of people 3d print instead, and there is a filament extruder you can make for that as well. There are a couple of instructables for it, but IIRC the plastic caps work better for 3d printing.
To reduce volume, usually you sort it, clean it, dry it, then shred it into smaller pieces. I haven’t seen a really good small scale plastic shredder.
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Having had some disappointing results long-term storing water in gallon milk jugs, I would want to accelerate aging (Sunshine and weather) on the bricks to test for long-term degradation. The polymers that are used these days to make plastics “biodegradable” cause them to start falling apart, getting brittle. That being said, I think the right mix of plastics would make great bricks!
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I have seen some videos on making building blocks and bricks from used plastic. We now have a huge stock pile of it floating in our oceans. It is a navigation hazard and breaking down into micro pieces of plastic poison for the animal life to eat, it is killing the sea life. I hope someone finds a way to harvest it and make millions of dollors doing it, (man needs to have a GREEDY insensitive to do this), and still produce a cheap building materials in the end for everyone to reuse. Boy is that a optimistic mouth full or what. If we want to save the life in our oceans, we need to get the poison out, and stop putting it in. This by the way, this is only one of the poisons that is being dumped into our seas. GOD’S written Words have said to us, all the people’s, everyone, to take care of His Creation, and be good stewards of what He has Created. No one is excluded, not even His Angels.
Bob
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You could also cover them with something to stop the UV radiation from degredating the plastic.
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a lime wash coating. That would help with fire risk as well.
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Hi Bob Mac wouldent that be nice if something good could happen with ocean plastic clean up AMEN. Maybe we all pray that will make the difference, in the mean time the verse i can think of and i am not a reading person is the one that says those that distroy the earth will i distroy allso, not sure exact location or phrase.??
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Kevin,
I’ll take a risk here. Not proselytizing, just presenting as an important historical document.
Part of the big final scenes in/of the book of Revelation. King James Version (public domain).
To be fair, I don’t think they were taking about environmentalism… 
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Thanks Mike R,That might have been the verse i was thinking of. Ya it might not have been there, though there are some too beleive it ment that i gess. yes he will return with fire this time, as in the days of sodom and gamora. So it seems there will be a new heavan and new earth.
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I doubt anyone is going to make millions harvesting plastic from the ocean, but P2O -might- help make it cost a lot less to clean up, and may prevent a lot of plastic from getting there in the first place.
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I doubt world economies and corporate “brains” will do anything but follow the cheapest path to profit. But the good news is that as oil runs out / becomes uneconomical, the problem may soon be self regulated… 
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That is the crux of it I think. According to the numbers I have seen the vast majority of the plastic is coming from a dozen rivers serving some of the poorest places on earth. No money for recycling and a cultural tradition of waste disposal through rivers. If the economics of turning it into oil work better then tossing it it will happen. Keeping it out of oceans where it’s dispersed mixed and broken up is key. A good article on the subject:
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It looks like we just need to convince people plastics to oil actually works in those areas. Most of those areas also have a high percentage of diesel vehicles. The first youtube video I watched on the subject was a guy from supposedly Ethiopia. He was making it for cars.
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