I have had more than one good friend of mine tell me that recycling plastic products is useless, as it takes as much energy to recycle the plastic as it would to simply buy a new product. Does anyone know the truth here?

I've never heard of that.. At least they're reusing resources if not energy. Im going to look into this.

I don't think so bondo why we recycle plastic is it can not be destroyed completely. Plastic itself is a pollution burn plastic pollution in air throw it it will stop rain water going in to the earth. Recycling at least helps us to reduce new production of it.