The symbol of recycling, with its distinguishable three arrows forming a triangle, is a universal emblem of sustainability 🌱. We find it in cardboard 📦 boxes, plastic packaging and containers, and its meaning is clear to us: it represents a continuous and cyclical 🔄 process. But did you know that it has more than 50 years of history and a fascinating origin? 🤔
✨ The Birth of an Icon: Earth Day and a Design Contest
In 1970, during the first celebration of World Earth 🌍 Day, the Container Corporation of America (CCA), a Chicago company specialized in cardboard manufacturing, organized a national 🎨 contest. This contest intended that design and art students created a logo that represented paper recycling, a key action to preserve natural 🌿 resources.
💡 Out of more than 500 entries, the winning 🏆 design was that of Gary Anderson, a 23-year-old student at the University of Southern California 🎓. Anderson created the symbol we all know inspired by the Möbius (or Moebius) ➰ strip, a geometric figure discovered in 1858 by mathematicians August Ferdinand Möbius and Johann Benedict Listing. This unique construction has a single face and a single edge, representing an infinite ♾️ cycle, ideal for the concept of recycling.
For his design, Anderson received a $💵 2,500 prize to continue his university studies. Years later, in an interview with the Financial Times, Anderson confessed that the design took him no more than a couple of days: “I drew the image as if the arrows were folded sheets of paper.”
🎨 The inspiration behind the design
In addition to the Möbius strip, Anderson was also inspired by the works of Dutch artist M.C. Escher, known for his impossible figures and geometric patterns. By integrating these ideas, the young man came up with a logo that symbolizes the three key steps of recycling:
1️⃣ Waste collection
2️⃣ Material Processing
3️⃣ Purchase of recycled products
✨ Today, this logo not only symbolizes paper recycling, but an entire global movement for a more sustainable 🌏💚 planet.