This story was originally published byGrist.
Its Earth Day 1990, and Meryl Streep walks into a bar.
Shes distraught about the state of the environment.
Photo:Marcus Quigmire/Wikimedia Commons
Its crazy what were doing.
he says, holding up a soda can.
The iconic chasing-arrows recycling symbol, invented 20 years earlier, was everywhere in the early 1990s.
When the chasing arrows promise of rebirth was broken, they could get angry.
Last year, the Environmental Protection Agency said that the symbols use on many plastic products was deceptive.
Recycling rules can be downright mystifying.
Some cities accept juice boxes lined with invisible layers of aluminum and plastic; others dont.
And do thescrew-on caps stay on plastic bottlesor not?
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The resulting confusion has made a mess of recycling efforts.
Huge bales ofpaper shipped overseas can contain as much as 30 percent plastic waste.
About a quarter of Americanslack accessto any recycling services.
So where did the three arrows go wrong?
The trouble is that their loop has ensnared us.
If some recycling is good, the thinking goes, then more recycling is better.
Pollution had pushed its way into the national conversation.
The idea of recycling seemingly burst onto the scene in 1970.
Earth Day organizers educated people about the value of sorting through their trash and advocated for community recycling programs.
He pitted recycling as the only ecologically sensible long-term solution for a country knee-deep in garbage.
It wasnt long before the concept acquired its signature symbol.
The simplest of his designs won, and Anderson was awarded a $2,500 scholarship in 1970.
The Mobius loop he created soon passed from his mind.
I just didnt really think of the symbol that much, he recalls.
It wasnt used very much in the first couple of years.
The Netherlands, purportedly, wasthe first country to launch a nationwide recycling programin 1972.
It just really shocked me into a realization that there must be something about this symbol, he said.
Refashioning old materials into new things is a longstanding American tradition.
Paul Revere, folk hero of the American Revolution,collected scrap metal and turned it into horseshoes.
We had to be trained, we had to be marketed to, to be wasteful like this.
Buy em by the sack, the slogan went.
Coca-Cola and other soda companies eventually followed suit.
The pressure on American businesses didnt go away, though.
Luckily for them, recycling was in vogue.
Theres a great future in plastics.
They also turned to recycling.
Read Next:Did plastic straw bans work?
Yes, but not in the way youd think.
Once the symbol was operational, Freeman said, then everybody started putting it on everything.
Their express purpose was to fend off anti-plastic legislation, according todocuments uncovered by the Center for Climate Integrity.
The laws eventually passed in 39 states.
But recycling rates the share of materials that actually get reprocessed had barely improved.
Its also more expensive to produce.
Only9 percent of the plastics ever produced have gone on to be recycled.
But not all recycling is a failure.
As much asthree-quarters of all the aluminumthats ever been produced is still in use, he said.
Paper is also relatively easy to process, withmore than two-thirdsmaking its way into new products in the U.S.
The recycling logo still gives anything it touches whether feasible to recycle or not a green aura.
Thats a credit to the iconic triangle, which has had 50 years to entrench itself in our culture.
So is there a way to give the recycling symbol meaning again?
Anything is recyclable, at least theoretically, one lawyerpointed out in a legal journalin 1991.
The effort to impose some sort of order came from California, often the national laboratory for environmental protection.
Wider efforts to restrict the symbol, however, lacked strength and enforcement.
Itdidnt require manufacturers to rework their labels, though.
Today, that might finally be changing.
When China banned the import of most plastics in 2018, it revealed problems that had long remained hidden.
The United States had beenshipping 70 percent of its plastic wasteto China 1.2 billion poundsin 2017 alone.
This spring, Mainepassed a lawto incentivize companies to use accurate recycling labels on their packaging.
New rules around the recycling logo are also brewing at the national level.
Because that symbol, or marketing something as recyclable, is very valuable.
The question on everyones mind is, whos going to win out?
said Allaway, the Oregon official.
They dont carry the weight of law.
So Dell has appointed herself de facto sheriff, suing companies over their false claims.
Exxon Mobil, the worldsthird-largest oil producer, ranks as thetop plastic polymer producer.
Correction: This story originally mischaracterized Samantha MacBrides position.
This article originally appeared inGristathttps://grist.org/culture/recycling-symbol-logo-plastic-design/.
Grist is a nonprofit, independent media organization dedicated to telling stories of climate solutions and a just future.
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