A system and method for recycling plastics. The system and method recover materials such as hydrocarbon gases, liquid hydrocarbon distillates, various polymers and/or monomers used to produce the original plastics. The system and method allow about one unit of input of energy input to the plastic recycler to be used to create one or more gaseous components and one or more liquid distillate components from a plastic that is being recycled. The one or more gaseous components and one or more liquid distillate components produce about one corresponding unit of useable output energy recovered from the recycling of the plastic.