[pfdietz]

I view recycling schemes for plastics as a way to make burning the stuff more convenient. Which is not necessarily a bad thing.

After fossil fuels are done, the reduced carbon in the waste stream (including plastics, but also cellulosic materials) will become more valuable as feedstock for various chemical processes. Garbage refining will be a thing. It will be an aggressive chemical endeavor, more akin to petroleum refining than to recycling.

[RandallBrown]

There's a book I read as a kid that takes place in the sort of near future after we've run out of oil.

The only people that have plastic in this future society are extremely wealthy and poor people "mine" old landfills looking for plastic to sell.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Ear,_the_Eye_and_the_Arm

[pfdietz]

That's not plausible, IMO. Plastic may become somewhat more expensive, but it doesn't require fossil fuels. Overall secular increase in societal wealth should overcome any transient increase in price.