Reconstituting plastic is what your body does every time you pack on a pound of fat as you comment on Hacker News — the only difference between a molecule of saturated fat and three molecules of kerosene is a little COOH group on the end and a glycerin to tie them together. Reversing metal oxidation is where we get the metal in the first place, with the notable exceptions of copper and some precious metals. And it has been for several thousand years. We dig up rocks made of metal oxides and reverse the oxidation. I'm just saying it's often easier to dig up the more concentrated oxides in landfills instead, and that economic advantage will grow as accessible natural deposits are mined out.
Silicon, aluminum, iron, and concrete excepted, naturally.
And, yeah, this uses energy. That's why I mentioned accessible energy as one of the two things we do actually consume.
If your solution requires technology which isn’t even close to being practical, then you’re just going on about sci-fi. That’s very interesting, and with a few exceptions sci-fi usually gets it wrong.
I am not sure what you are talking about, but technology to produce metals from their oxides has been practical since at least Çatal Höyük, 8500 years ago, and cracking and distilling random mixtures of hydrocarbons to make plastic has been practical since 1939. Catalytic cracking has been the main way we make plastics since then, although it was in use to produce fuel and lubricants since a few years earlier.
My best guess is that you didn't read the comment you are replying to, so I am hoping that repeating it in more detail, as I have above, will result in you reading it.
Silicon, aluminum, iron, and concrete excepted, naturally.
And, yeah, this uses energy. That's why I mentioned accessible energy as one of the two things we do actually consume.