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Acknowledgements
By Jennifer L. Turner
First and foremost, I want to extend my deepest thanks to our hardworking contributing authors, who have several combined lifetimes of experience in the plastic waste and environmental protection realms. There is not yet extensive U.S.-China collaboration around plastic waste. However, our authors reveal many areas of synergy and action where governments, NGOs, and researchers in both countries could share insights and join forces to address the global plastic crisis.
As we have not been able to hold any in-person meetings since March 2020, we decided to bring more voices to our work by adding more authors to this and the previous InsightOut issue (“Can Indonesia Close the Loop on Plastic Waste?”). So instead of a sprint with four to six op-ed authors as in the past, these two plastic-themed InsightOut issues have been marathons! Clare Auld-Brokish and Tongxin Zhu were the initial managing editors of this issue in 2020 and 2021 and a team of other research interns have picked up the task since and helped to get it to the finish line. I am grateful to all of them. A special shout out goes to Angela Pan and Solange Reppas who wrestled with spotty data sources to create the three U.S.-China plastic infographics featured in this issue. As always I am in awe of our creative graphic designer Kerrin Cuison, who once again transformed our written words into a beautifully laid out publication.
Last, but never least, I want to thank the Japan Foundation’s Center for Global Partnership for the two years of support for our Turning the Tide on Plastic Waste in Asia project. Their support enabled us to produce two InsightOut publications, as well as many blogs and webinars with our fabulous Japanese partners, Dr. Michikazu Kojima and Dr. Kenji Otsuka, from the Institute of Developing Economies. The Turning the Tide project opened up a new area of programming focused on creating dialogues between experts in the United States and Asia on plastic waste solutions, which we are continuing with great enthusiasm.
