There’s a Clever Strategy Behind the Flash of Fireworks Packaging

In the United States, the presence of the universal recycling icon on a product might lead an unassuming consumer to believe that when they toss that item in a recycling bin, it will find its way to fulfill another material function somewhere along the supply-chain. We’re taught to believe this process repeats ad infinitum—as the Möbius-arrows of the recycling symbol suggest.

Yet most of us know it doesn’t really work that way. Few of us know how it works, or if it ever really works at all. As more reports and photos come to light, detailing the trash-polluted expanses of Earth, a growing number of people are learning that the circular dream of the universal recycling icon is typically not circular at all. In fact, it actually has an end point, and that end point is often the stomach of a marine animal, a toxic land-fill, or perhaps even our own drinking water.

In its design, the message of the recycling symbol is an ecological one, yet the reality of the system that the symbol has come to represent is so ill-equipped to handle plastic (less than 10% of plastic has been recycled in the last 40 years) and mitigate material waste that the icon’s presence on a package has become virtually meaningless. In recent years organizations like How2Recycle and Recycle Across America have introduced new labeling systems for both products and recycling bins that aim to help consumers (and brands) take more responsibility over their recycling habits. But those efforts come with a serious caveat: Even the best communication design isn’t a silver bullet when it comes to something as complicated as recycling. Well-designed labeling can bridge the information gap between consumer and producer, but it can also act as a way for brands to deflect responsibility while they continue to develop products and packaging that are complicated to recycle.

02Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet consectetur. Pharetra auctor venenatis diam lectus.

A 23-year-old design student named Gary Anderson first designed the universal recycling symbol in 1970, during the US’s first major shift towards environmental marketing. While studying for his Masters degree, Anderson designed the symbol for a contest held by the Container Corporation of America (CCA) in celebration of the first ever Earth Day. It won, and CCA promoted the symbol so much that by the time they attempted to trademark it their claim was challenged due to the symbol’s popularity. Remaining in the public domain, the symbol’s free-use allowed it to spread and become “universal.” In a 2012 profile in Financial Times, Anderson said, “Maybe this design is a bigger part of my life’s contribution than I had thought but still, I’d hate to think that my life’s work is defined by it,” revealing a hesitation to embrace his legacy–a hesitation that in retrospect may have been prudent.

Today, the recycling symbol is found on millions of products, from glass to plastic to paper, but the regulations around who can deploy the symbol have remained relatively lax. “Most people use [the recycling symbol] totally wrong,” says Victor Bell, President of Environmental Packaging International (EPI). For the last 20 years, EPI has consulted for a number of international brands and retail corporations such as Walmart on the “recyclability” claims of their products. Bell continues—

It is very poorly enforced and there are so many recycling labels out there that people use that are deceptive according to the FTC.

In 1992 the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) developed its Green Guides as a way of instructing marketers on how to clearly communicate and qualify all “environmental marketing claims.” In the most recent 2012 revision, this includes claims regarding recyclability, compostability, carbon offsetting, renewable energy, recycled content, degradability, etc. The goal of the guides is to protect consumers from deceptive marketing and greenwashing by companies looking to capitalize on perceived environmentalism.
According to the Green Guides, the presence of the recycling symbol on any product is a direct indication that the product, in its totality, can be recycled by at least 60% of communities where the product is sold. A plastic juice bottle sold at Whole Foods may be recyclable in New York and California, for example, but if it can’t be recycled in at least 60% of the communities where that Whole Foods juice is sold, that bottle cannot be called recyclable, and it shouldn’t display the symbol.

03Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet consectetur. Pharetra auctor venenatis diam lectus.

04Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet consectetur. Pharetra auctor venenatis diam lectus.

But it’s not that simple. The clarity of the recyclability icon is muddled by the plastic resin identification coding system (RIC), which was introduced in 1988. Briefly explained, the RIC shows up on plastic packaging as numbers one through seven that sit inside the chasing arrows symbol. Though the numbers can be used by a consumer to interpret whether or not a plastic can be recycled in their area, consumers shouldn’t interpret the presence of RIC as an indication that a product can absolutely be recycled. In truth, the RIC system isn’t designed for consumers at all—it’s a communication tool meant for waste facilities to help them properly sort the different types of plastics found in consumer products. Confusing, right? While recycling has little legal regulation in most states, RIC numbers (with the chasing arrows) are legally required to be put on plastic containers larger than 8oz. and under five gallons in 39 states, leaving producers with the choice of “violating” FTC regulations or actually breaking the law. There have been efforts to change the RIC arrows into a solid triangle to avoid this confusion, but RIC with the arrows continued to be used widely.

While the FTC does not publicly discuss enforcement efforts regarding violations of the green guides, Bell suggests that there is little investigation into violations of recyclability claims. Companies can more or less get away with slapping the symbol on their packaging, regardless of how recyclable the material actually is. “There’s really no challenges to it,” says Bell. “There really needs to be a crackdown on poor labelling.”
For now, the FTC’s green guides are not legal requirements; choosing to communicate recyclability is voluntary. While there is legislation being discussed in New York, Maine, Oregon and Washington to create more effective enforcement of recyclability claims, California is currently the only state where serious action can be taken, as was seen with the 2019 ruling against Keurig.

All of this confusion has led to some important efforts around designing a better recycling label. In 2008, the Sustainable Packaging Coalition (SPC), an organization made up of different brands and retailers, created the How2Recycle project as an effort to design a more legible and effective visual system for recycling. Formally launching in 2012, How2Recycle is a trademarked label design that builds upon the classic icon in hopes that it might impact consumer recycling behavior.

Contact Us

There’s a Clever Strategy Behind the Flash of Fireworks Packaging