Matt, though I posted this article I can't endorse it - I don't understand it completely myself. But per IAEA:

"NUTEC Plastics will demonstrate how gamma and electron beam radiation technologies can modify certain types of plastic waste to be recycled or upcycled for reuse. 'A main obstacle in conventional plastic recycling is that recycling lowers the quality of plastic and pellets generated,' Mokhtar explained. 'You can use radiation to break down plastic polymers having insufficient quality into smaller components and use these to generate new plastic products, thus extending the plastic waste lifecycle.'"

Years ago, a friend and consultant who worked for the Los Angeles Dept. of Sanitation developed a similar technique for sorting and recycling municipal solid waste (MSW, or garbage). It used ultra-high heat to break down materials into their component parts for recycling. It never gained much traction, though. Generating enough energy to heat all of that trash ended up creating more of an environmental impact than the trash would in a landfill.

If L.A. was powered by nuclear energy, of course, it would be another story.

Nearly all of the plastic waste in oceans comes from developing countries without any national environmental standards at all - it gets piled on barges and hauled out to sea. In his book Apocalypse Never, Michael Shellenberger explains how insisting on paper straws, recycled water bottles, etc. in the U.S. is less than pointless. If developing countries had access to abundant, clean, affordable energy, he writes, they too would have the tools and resources to dispose of waste in a responsible manner.

The U.S., in so many ways, sets an example for the world. Insisting on paper drinking straws makes no more sense in Bali than it does here.