The universal recycling symbol ( or in

Unicode Unicode, formally The Unicode Standard,The formal version reference is is an information technology standard for the consistent encoding, representation, and handling of text expressed in most of the world's writing systems. The standard, ...

) is internationally recognized for symbol for

recycling Recycling is the process of converting waste materials into new materials and objects. The Energy recycling, recovery of energy from waste materials is often included in this concept. The recyclability of a material depends on its ability t ...

activity. The symbol's creation originates on the first Earth Day in 1970, where the logo depicted is a

Möbius strip In mathematics, a Möbius strip, Möbius band, or Möbius loop is a surface that can be formed by attaching the ends of a strip of paper together with a half-twist. As a mathematical object, it was discovered by Johann Benedict Listing and A ...

. The public domain status of the symbol has been challenged before, but attempts have been unsuccessful. Many variations on the logo had been created since its creation.

History

Worldwide attention to environmental issues led to the first Earth Day in 1970.

Container Corporation of America Container Corporation of America (CCA) was founded in 1926 and manufactured corrugated boxes. In 1968 CCA merged with Montgomery Ward & Company, Inc., becoming MARCOR. MARCOR maintained separate management for the operations of each company, but ...

, a large producer of recycled paperboard, sponsored a contest for art and design students at high schools and colleges across the country to raise awareness of environmental issues. It was won by Gary Anderson, then a 23-year-old college student at the

University of Southern California , mottoeng = "Let whoever earns the palm bear it" , religious_affiliation = Nonsectarian—historically Methodist , established = , accreditation = WSCUC , type = Private research university , academic_affiliations = , endowment = $8. ...

, whose entry was the image now known as the universal recycling symbol. The symbol is not

trademark A trademark (also written trade mark or trade-mark) is a type of intellectual property consisting of a recognizable sign, design, or expression that identifies products or services from a particular source and distinguishes them from oth ...

ed and is in the

public domain The public domain (PD) consists of all the creative work to which no exclusive intellectual property rights apply. Those rights may have expired, been forfeited, expressly waived, or may be inapplicable. Because those rights have expired, ...

. The public-domain status of the symbol has been challenged, but this challenge was unsuccessful owing to the wide use of the symbol. However, the universal symbol may have been inspired by similar existing at the time recycling symbols, such as one featuring two arrows chasing each other in a circle that

Volkswagen Volkswagen (),English: , . abbreviated as VW (), is a German motor vehicle manufacturer headquartered in Wolfsburg, Lower Saxony, Germany. Founded in 1937 by the German Labour Front under the Nazi Party and revived into a global brand post ...

stamped in the early 1960s into some automobile parts it remanufactured.

Variants

The recycling symbol is in the

, and is not a

. The Container Corporation of America originally applied for a trademark on the design, but the application was challenged, and the corporation decided to abandon the claim. As such, anyone may use or modify the recycling symbol, royalty-free. Though use of the symbol is regulated by law in some countries, countless variants of it exist worldwide. Anderson's original proposal had the arrows form a triangle standing on its tip—upside down compared with the versions most commonly seen today—but the CCA, in adopting Anderson's design, rotated it 60° to stand on its base instead. Both Anderson's proposal and CCA's designs form a

with ''one'' half-twist by having two of the arrows fold over each other, and one fold under, thereby canceling out one of the other folds. However, most variants of the symbol used today have all the arrows folding over themselves, producing a Möbius strip with ''three'' half-twists. Existing single half-twist variants of the logo do not generally agree on which of the arrows is the one to fold underneath. The logo is usually displayed with the arrows circulating clockwise, but the underlying Möbius strip exists in two topologically distinct mirror-image forms of opposite

handedness In human biology, handedness is an individual's preferential use of one hand, known as the dominant hand, due to it being stronger, faster or more dextrous. The other hand, comparatively often the weaker, less dextrous or simply less subjec ...

. The

American Paper Institute The American Forest & Paper Association (AF&PA) is the national trade association of the paper and wood products industry. AF&PA was formed on January 1, 1993, by the merger of the National Forest Product Association and the American Paper Inst ...

originally promoted four different variants of the recycling symbol for different purposes. The plain Möbius loop, either white with an outline or solid black, was to be used to indicate that a product was ''recyclable''. The other two variants had the Möbius loop inside a circle—either

white on black White is the lightest color and is achromatic (having no hue). It is the color of objects such as snow, chalk, and milk, and is the opposite of black. White objects fully reflect and scatter all the visible wavelengths of light. White o ...

or black on white—and were meant for products ''made of recycled materials'', with the white-on-black version to be used for 100% recycled fiber, and the black-on-white version for products containing both recycled and unrecycled fiber. For example, a paper envelope might have both the first and last of these four symbols, to indicate that it was recyclable, and made from both recycled and unrecycled fibers. In addition to the

resin identification code The ASTM International Resin Identification Coding System, often abbreviated RIC, is a set of symbols appearing on plastic products that identify the plastic resin out of which the product is made. It was developed in 1988 by the Society of t ...

s 1–7 in the triangular recycling symbol, Unicode lists the following recycling symbols: * * * * (indicates product contains recycled paper) * (indicates product contains partially recycled paper) * (e.g. for acid-free paper) An ISO/IEC working group has researched and documented some of the variations of the recycling logo in use during 2001, and has made recommendations for adding some more of them to the Unicode standard. With the rapid expansion of materials converted to printer filament for 3-D printing using recyclebot technology, a large expansion of resin identification codes has been proposed.Emily J. Hunt, Chenlong Zhang, Nick Anzalone, Joshua M. Pearce
Polymer recycling codes for distributed manufacturing with 3-D printers
''Resources, Conservation and Recycling'', 97, pp. 24–30 (2015)
open access
/ref>

Resin identification code

In 1988, the American Society of the Plastics Industry (SPI) developed the

which is used to indicate the predominant plastic material used in the manufacture of the product or packaging. Their purpose is to assist recyclers with sorting the collected materials, but they do not necessarily mean that the product/packaging can be recycled either through domestic curbside collection or industrial collections. The SPI symbols are loosely based on the Möbius loop symbol, but feature simpler bent (rather than folded over) arrows that can be embossed on plastic surfaces without loss of detail. The arrows are formed into a flat, two-dimensional triangle rather than the pseudo-three-dimensional triangle used in the original recycling logo. The different resin identification codes can be represented by

icons ♳ (U+2673), ♴ (U+2674), ♵ (U+2675), ♶ (U+2676), ♷ (U+2677), ♸ (U+2678), ♹ (U+2679), and ♺ (U+267A). Recycling codes extend these numbers above 7 to include various non-plastic materials, including metals, glass, paper, and batteries of various types.

Other variants

♾, an

infinity Infinity is that which is boundless, endless, or larger than any natural number. It is often denoted by the infinity symbol . Since the time of the ancient Greeks, the philosophical nature of infinity was the subject of many discussions am ...

sign (∞) inside a circle, represents the permanent paper symbol, used in packaging and publishing to signify the use of durable acid-free paper. In some ways, this logo expresses the ''opposite'' intention from the recycle logo, in that the acid-free paper is intended to last indefinitely, rather than being recycled. Nevertheless, acid-free paper does not usually contain toxic materials (although certain inks do), so it is easily recycled or composted. A satirical version of the classic recycling logo also exists, in which the three arrows are twisted from a circular pattern to pointing radially outward, thus symbolizing wasteful one-time usage rather than environmentally friendly recycling. This message is reinforced by the circular inscription, "THIS PROJECT WAS ENVIRONMENTALLY UNFRIENDLY", surrounding the modified logo. The satirical logo appears in the 1998 catalog of an

installation art Installation art is an artistic genre of three-dimensional works that are often site-specific and designed to transform the perception of a space. Generally, the term is applied to interior spaces, whereas exterior interventions are often calle ...

work in Bayonne, New Jersey, in which the artist Steven Pippin modified a row of glass-doored washing machines in a

laundromat A self-service laundry, coin laundry, laundromat, or coin wash is a facility where clothes are washed and dried without much personalized professional help. They are known in the United Kingdom as launderettes or laundrettes, and in the Uni ...

to operate as giant cameras. The cameras were used to take sequential photographs in the manner of pioneering

stop motion Stop motion is an animated filmmaking technique in which objects are physically manipulated in small increments between individually photographed frames so that they will appear to exhibit independent motion or change when the series of frames ...

photographer

Eadweard Muybridge Eadweard Muybridge (; 9 April 1830 – 8 May 1904, born Edward James Muggeridge) was an English photographer known for his pioneering work in photographic studies of motion, and early work in motion-picture projection. He adopted the firs ...

. The front-loading washing machines were then used to develop and process the 24 inch (61 cm) diameter circular film negatives.

References

External links

* {{Commons category-inline, Recycling symbols (3 arrows - folded) Certification marks Consumer symbols Recycling Symbols introduced in 1970