Why Use the Mobius Loop as a Recycle Symbol

By Karen Vertigan Pope
Green Office Store.com Contributing Writer
May, 2008

The Mobius strip or Mobius Band is a mathematical object with only one surface and one boundary component. So what does that mean in English? It is an object that only has one side.

To illustrate this, cut a piece of paper into a strip that is about twelve inches long and one inch wide. Draw a line down the center the long way and another line across the center. Put another line on the back side of the paper at the same spot. Give the paper a half twist and join the ends with a piece of tape. Find your line that you drew across the paper, using that as a starting point. With your finger, follow the line you drew length-wise until you get back to the line. It will start out on the outside of the paper and end up on the inside as you follow it around the loop.

You have just created a very complicated mathematical object with a piece of paper - an object with only one side and one edge, more commonly called a Mobius Loop, originally created by August Ferdinand Mobius, a nineteenth century German mathematician and astronomer.

The question remains: Why use this as a symbol for recycling?

The familiar three arrows that symbolize recycling will form a Mobius Loop if they are all three joined together, point to end. The Chicago-Based Container Corporation of America held a contest in conjunction with Earth Day in 1970, and they asked art and design students to create a symbol to represent recycling. The contest was won by a University of Southern California art student, Gary Anderson.

The figure he created was designed as a Mobius strip to symbolize continuity within a finite entity. He used arrows to give direction to the symbol. He tried to demonstrate how things are dynamic, or changing, and how they are static, or unchanging, at the same time.

Reduce. Reuse. Recycle.

Those three words have become part of the three sections of recycle arrows that form the Mobius strip. The three words plus the Mobius strip symbolizes the never-ending need for recycling and how recycling can potentially last forever. For example, the materials from that plastic water bottle you just tossed into the recycle bin may be used over and over again, ending up in thousands of new plastic products in the coming years.

The recycle symbol and its many variations are in the public domain and may be used by anyone on any product that is recyclable.

Our Mobius Loop paper clip / bookmark is a great way to pass along your interest in the recycling and sustainability!