Amsterdam, 8 April 2019 – “Everyone should read this book from start to finish.” said former Minister of the Environment Jacqueline Cramer, also Chairman of the Supervisory Board of the Plastic Soup Foundation when she received the first copy of Plastic Soup: An Atlas of Ocean Pollution.
This book, published by Island Press (Washington DC), is now for sale worldwide. The Dutch Edition, an initiative of PSF in collaboration with publishing house LIAS, was published last year and has since been reprinted. The presentation took place in the Global Experience Centre of Smurfit Kappa at Schiphol Airport. The PSF Business Angels gathered at this occasion with the theme Changing the Future of Packaging.
In his speech author Michiel Roscam Abbing referred to the long history of his book. “It started in 2009 with the book Plastic Soup by Jesse Goosens, who had interviewed Jacqueline Cramer for her book. Cramer was one of the first to recognize the problem of plastic soup. As Minister of the Environment in the Netherlands she raised the plastic soup issue with UNEP, the leading global environmental authority of the United Nations, and with her fellow ministers in Europe. Maria Westerbos was the initiator of this book, but had not yet met Cramer in person. Not much later Maria Westerbos was to establish the Plastic Soup Foundation and invited Cramer to become Chairman of the Board. Already in those early days of the Plastic Soup Foundation the idea of writing a new book on the plastic soup circulated in our office. In April 2018, this book was finally launched: The Plastic Soup Atlas of the World.”
Maria Westerbos presented the first copy of the Atlas to EU Commissioner for the Environment Karmenu Vella on Malta at a conference of the plastic industry. Commissioner Vella was pleased with the Atlas because it, he said, gives a lot of attention to solutions and action perspective. Later Frans Timmermans, Vice-President of the European Commission, also received a copy.
According to Roscam Abbing, these were very important and visible moments that aroused interest among international publishers to also publish translated editions. Today there we have the World Edition English. Later this month an Italian edition will be published, and in the course of this year a Japanese will follow. A reprint of the Dutch edition appeared in January 2019. Five euros of every Dutch Atlas sold go to the Plastic Soup Foundation.
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