Continuity of the finite: the birth of the recycling symbol

No other conceptual motif from the world of waste management is as well-known as the recycling symbol. Even as I write this — ­trying to think up some words to say about the symbol’s ubiquity — I realise that those three infinitely looping arrows are in fact staring right at me, proudly adorning the office paper recycling bin.

The symbol is a masterpiece of design: simple enough to function as a graphic yet based on mind bending mathematical concepts; intuitive enough to be universally memorable while elegantly illustrating the practises it signifies. However, it is very much a product of its time and perhaps could only have been designed in the early 1970s. Although the work of one man, Gary Anderson, its genesis marked the meeting of a number of mid twentieth century lines of thought, which upon intersection made for a marvellous geometry of design.

Design of the times

Although now known the world over, the recycling symbol has its provenance in the United States. Environmentalism first caught hold of the American imagination in the early 60s, when Rachel Carson’s book Silent Spring — which critiqued the use of synthetic pesticides — became a best seller. This led to a growing environmental consciousness, which Senator Gaylord Nelson hoped to put on a par with the peace movement through the staging of the first Earth Day in 1970. There were coast-to-coast rallies attended by people from all walks of life and political persuasion, and in its wake the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency was created and the first U.S. environmental acts passed.

High flyer: the recycling symbol has travelled the world. Image by Gautham Pillai, via Wikimedia Commons.

In the midst of this revolutionary cultural climate, a paperboard packaging manufacturer called the Container Corporation of America (CCA) held a competition to create a design which would symbolise the recycling process. It was in keeping with the times that this was an open contest for young art and design students; in the words of CCA: “as inheritors of the earth, they should have their say.” One imagines that a corporation today mightn’t take the same approach.

Tales from the topological oceans

We all know what the winning entry was, but what were the roots of its design? In a meeting of worlds, this is where conservation and geometric art collide. The recycling symbol is a fragmented depiction of a Möbius Strip, which is a surface with only one side and one edge. Imagine a strip of paper with a half-twist in it, and the two short ends joined together — if say, an ant, were to crawl along it, it would end up back at the point where it started, having covered the entire length of both sides of the original strip of paper.

A loopy object: the recycling symbol is modelled on the Möbius Strip. Photograph by David Benbennick, via Wikimedia Commons

Anderson was familiar with the Möbius Strip through the mathematically inspired work of Dutch artist M. C. Escher, whose work had come to be well known in America in the 1950s, in part through being featured in Time Magazine. Escher produced hundreds of drawings and lithographs which utilise geometric ideas to seemingly skew the very logic of space. He was particularly interested in topology, which concerns the preservation of properties through twistings, stretchings, and other deformations of objects. The Möbius Strip is one such topological object, which Anderson would have known through works such as Escher’s Möbius Strip II.

It is this strange, endlessly looping geometry which Anderson used to convey the cyclical concept of material reuse. In the design, three paper arrows are twisted into a Möbius Strip, with the arrows’ heads providing directionality around the loop. In Anderson’s own words: “The figure was designed as a Möbius Strip to symbolise continuity within a finite entity.” Continuity within a finite entity isn’t a bad description of recycling.

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The CCA applied for patent registration of the symbol, but as it had already been taken up by major bodies in the paper industry their application was challenged. They dropped the application and the design became public property, subsequently going on to metamorphose – in true Escher style – into the countless variants seen today. However, according to Anderson it was some years after winning the contest – by which time he had all but forgotten the symbol – before he saw his design again. Then, upon flying in to the Netherlands for a new job the symbol greeted him at the airport on the front of a large recycling bin!

Although the recycling symbol has been modified for different purposes, the essentials of the design always remain: a looping arrow or arrows signifying a directed and repeating process. In recent years, the UK waste industry has moved away from Anderson’s recycling symbol, and it is now no longer part of the officially sanctioned recycling iconography. Instead, the symbol of choice is a WRAP-developed logo which forms part of a design set (including standardised bin colours) that aims to update and bring about uniformity in the UK’s waste iconography.

However, it is clear that the new symbol with its circular arrow gives a nod to Anderson’s original, and while simplifying his design borrows from it some of its recognition value. Indeed, the recycling symbol has been modified into a variety of forms. The twist of the Möbius Strip is not always present – the design is sometimes flattened to complete two-dimensionality – but the idea of cycling the finite through eternity, captured so well by Anderson, has become part of our imaginative landscape when it comes to thinking about recycling.

When asked about the source of his symbol, Anderson has referenced psychologist Carl Jung’s theory that “a symbol really is a reflection of a primeval form that’s in our collective consciousness”. Whether or not the recycling symbol has such archetypal roots, the place of Anderson’s easily recognisable, adaptable form in the collective consciousness seems assured. May it continue to repeat through infinity.

If you want to learn more, there are a number of excellent articles on the history of the recycling symbol and Gary Anderson, including a piece in Gary’s own words which I have drawn from in writing this piece.