Two plastic bags require 990 kJ (kilojoules) of natural gas, 240 kJ of petroleum, and 160 kJ of coal. That is a lot for just two Safeway-sized plastic bags!! That adds up to about 4% of the worlds oil consumption.
Components of oil or natural gas are heated in a cracking process, which creates hydrocarbon monomers. In the manufacturing process, hydrocarbon monomers are biogeochemically manipulated, resulting in the creation of hydrocarbon polymers, which are essentially large molecules made up of repeated units of hydrocarbon monomers. Different groupings of monomers make polymers with different characteristics "http://www.islandnet.com/~vipirg/publications/pubs/student_papers/05_ecofootprint_plastic_bags.pdf"
So what they are doing is heating up/cracking, the petroleum products until the tar-ish stuff in them is all thats left behind. Sounds great for the environment to burn petrol until all you're left with is the dregs of it.
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