China has published the world's first environment-friendly plastic book written by a former scientific consultant to the US president.

Titled Cradle to Cradle, the book is authored by William McDonough, who was also honoured as the 'Father of the Next Industrial Revolution'.

The book was launched at an ongoing 'International Forum on Demonstrative Projects of Sino-US Sustainable Urban and Rural Development' in Liuzhou city in south China's Guangxi's Zhuang autonomous region.

Cradle to Cradle is the latest concept introduced by McDonough, who is also president of the council of Sino-US Sustainable Development Centre. The book will give a systematic expatiation of the concept.

McDonough said he chose to publish the book with plastic for the purpose of recycling and repeated use of resources.

Books printed with papers not only consume a lot of lumber, but also give rise to pollution due to printing ink on the paper when recycled.

If the books are printed with plastic, they can be re-utilised after the printing ink on the plastics is disposed of in an environment-friendly chemical method.

Besides 100,000 copies in the English version, the book is also published in Chinese, German, Italian, Spanish and Korean language versions.