As a senior sustainability advisor at ExxonMobil, Melanie Bower is supporting policy solutions that will allow advanced recycling to be used as technology in the recycling space. Mechanical recycling cannot handle all plastics, whereas advanced recycling converts difficult-to-recycle plastic waste into raw materials that can be used to make new products, including virgin quality plastics necessary for food and medical packaging. 

As a seventh generation Floridian, Melanie has seen first-hand the challenge plastic waste imposes on all of us:

“When you go to an environment such as the beach and you see plastic waste you want to do what you can to help address it. It’s really important that we, as a society, do what we can to help address the challenge of plastic waste.”

Melanie’s Ph.D. in chemistry has allowed her to advocate for complex public policies that could help bring about scalable solutions to ExxonMobil’s advanced recycling initiatives. She believes advanced recycling is a key part of the solutions needed to address plastic waste and keep plastics where they belong – in our economy and out of our environment.