In 1970, Gary Anderson created what would become one of the world’s most recognizable and enduring icons in the time it takes most of us to decide what’s for dinner.

“I came up with the recycling symbol in just a couple of days, and to be honest, it was probably more a couple of minutes,” Anderson said, chuckling, during a recent interview inside his Bolton Hill home.

On a whim, the then-23-year-old University of Southern California graduate student entered and won a $2,500 design contest by drawing three arrows in perpetual, triangular motion.

As the world celebrates Earth Day, the inventor of the recycling symbol is now a 78-year-old retiree who chooses to call Baltimore home. While Anderson was a nature lover at an early age, the former architect is far from the stereotype of the baby boomer hippie who is determined to save a warming planet from human folly.

In fact, his relationship with his ubiquitous creation is complicated.

For many years, Anderson refused to include it on his résumé. The more prominent the symbol became, the less interested he was in claiming credit. He was an architect, not a graphic designer.

“If I were hiring, and somebody sent me something that wasn’t really central to what the job requirements were,” he said, “I’d think that that person didn’t really understand what the job was all about.”

The symbol’s origins trace back to a contest sponsored by the Container Corporation of America, which wanted to promote the recycling of paper products. The rules were simple: The black-and-white logo had to be reproducible and legible at a quarter-inch size and would be free to use in the public domain. Only high schoolers and college students could apply.

Anderson, who saw the call for entries posted on a bulletin board, was intrigued by minimalist logos that “were very simple but jam-packed with meaning,” like AT&T’s globe and IBM’s striped, art deco-leaning letters.

Inspired by the mechanics of a printing press and M.C. Escher’s dream-like optical illusions, Anderson submitted his pencil drawing with no expectations.

“I’ve never been a person who really focuses easily on things in my life. So no, I didn’t think, ‘I’m gonna win this by hook or by crook,’” he said. “It was more like, ‘Well, I could do this. I could come up with something.’”

That, of course, turned out to be quite an understatement.

Nolen Strals, a creative director whose portfolio includes work for The New York Times and Taharka Bros. Ice Cream, called the recycling symbol “the pinnacle of design,” on par with the peace sign and religious symbols.

“It doesn’t look like anything else,” Strals said. “It reproduces well at whatever size. It always looks like itself, and it distills a very complex concept to something that anyone can grasp.”

It’s safe to say that, given the widespread use and instant recognition of the recycling symbol today, Anderson’s cash prize — equivalent to just under $21,000 in 2026 — was a drastic bargain.

Sitting across from Anderson, I had to ask: Do you allow yourself to fantasize about what your life would look like if you had been compensated for even a fraction of the symbol’s potential monetary value?

No, he said without hesitation. The rules were the rules — plus “it doesn’t really have any financial value because nobody would use it if they had to pay for it.”

And with that, Anderson went about his life, not giving much thought to the symbol’s post-contest life.

But he began noticing it popping up more and more — first in the corner of a bank statement envelope, then on a trip to Amsterdam, where Anderson saw it “blown up to the size of a beach ball” on recycling bins.

“That was the first time I really thought, ‘Yes, this seems to have caught on,’” said Anderson, who later moved to Baltimore for a job with architectural firm RTKL Associates.

Harris Waltuck, a graphic designer and teacher at Baltimore Design School, said the recycling symbol is an example of “immensely successful” design because of its scalability and usage all over the world. It’s even an emoji.

“It really transcends from age group to age group,” Waltuck said. “A brand [logo] is one thing. Something that we really need to use and rely on, that’s another thing.”

The symbol’s growing presence also reinforced Anderson’s stance on excluding it from his résumé: “It would just overpower everything else that I had to show.”

He finally came around after hearing that someone in Container Corporation of America’s graphics department claimed they made the symbol. Anderson knew he needed to start taking ownership of his creation.

“I don’t want to gloat myself over this, but I’d be damned if I’m gonna have somebody else taking credit for it,” he said.

Today, Anderson will speak at events and conferences about the symbol when asked, which nowadays happens with more frequency. Attendees tell him he must feel “so proud and blessed.” And sure, he’s grateful that people are more aware of recycling thanks to his work.

But, for Anderson, those adjectives fail to hit the mark.

“It’s hard to explain,” Anderson said. “I’m not really proud, per se. And I hate it when people say, ‘Oh, I’m so humbled.’ What does that mean?”

With Earth Day’s arrival, it’s natural to wonder how Anderson feels about the state of the planet. Like millions of us, he’s grown increasingly concerned about the deteriorating environment. He doesn’t understand why there hasn’t been more progress in recycling to make it easier and more efficient.

“I mean, my goodness, the idea of recycling has been around quite a while now,” he said. “Why haven’t more technologies been developed that could help recycle these things?”

Anderson understands why some consumers feel like the process takes too much effort or feel skeptical about whether the items will be properly recycled.

“But for all that, it’s still better to do it than not to do it,” he said. “Anything is better than nothing.”