23 - RECYCLE

RECYCLE

15 ¼ x 19 ¾ inches

(1968—Recycle logo designed by Cousin Gary Anderson)

Recycling was merely part of life on the farm. Old jars were sterilized and reused over and over for canning. Plastic bags and aluminum foil scraps were used until they fell apart. Empty printed flour sacks became dresses, diapers, towels, and eventually rags for cleaning. Old tires were used for retaining walls, as bumper pads for feed bunks, or even as seats for swings.

The recycling lifestyle that farmers had always embraced finally started to appear on the West Coast in the 1960’s. While studying architecture in 1968 at the University of Southern California, my cousin, Gary Anderson, won a competition for designing a recycling logo. This symbol is now as familiar and common as the cardboard box itself.

The recycling symbol embodies and reinforces my family’s conservative values of honoring the earth.