Robair Robair:
So oil shows up in the water, what's left in the container that they shoved the plastic into? A bunch of toxic crap or... ?
Actually I don't think so. The process is basically vapourizing the plastic which is a pretty homogeneous material. The vapour then condenses in the cold water and as it does it forms oil. Very promising method to eliminate waste plastic from the environment.
I imagine in a few years some company will develop a method to do this efficiently on a boat, head out to the massive plastic island and have themselves a floating oil producing platform.