In Memoriam - Dick Vethaak

06/08/2024
1 - 3 minute
19

On June two, 2024, my dear, brilliant friend Dick Vethaak passed away. “I am at peace,” he wrote to me in his last app, which was on Monday, May 6. With him is lost a great and progressive scientist, but above all, a wonderful husband and father. He was 70 years old.

Dick was a biologist and toxicologist. He retired from VU University Amsterdam in 2020 as Emeritus Professor of Water Quality and Health. His long tenure at Deltares in Delft ended in April 2022. Yet he did not say goodbye. Among other things, he coordinated – until his death – the MOMENTUM project; the extensive Dutch Microplastics & Human Health consortium.

I got to know him twelve years ago. The Beat the Microbead campaign had just erupted and I invited him to independently inform a number of Members of Parliament about plastics in cosmetics and personal care products. He did so with conviction. It was the beginning of a long-term collaboration that ended abruptly.

Our last project together was the Plastic Health Council, a platform of independent professors urging legislators and governments to clamp down on the production of disposable plastics. This is to protect future generations from the ecological and health disaster currently unfolding.

Dick was no caller in the desert. He was appreciated worldwide for his research and publications. He was one of the first to specialize in the effects of toxic additives in plastic products.

I will miss him greatly.

Maria Westerbos

Director|Founder