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Mobius loop with a percentage

Mobius loop with a percentage
The pack contains that percentage of recycled material.

What it looks like

The three chasing arrows with a number and per-cent sign inside or beside them, such as 80%.

What it means

A completely different claim from the plain loop: this one is about what went into the pack, not what can happen to it afterwards. ISO 14021 requires the figure to be verifiable and to cover pre-consumer and post-consumer content separately where both are counted. It is one of the few marks in this family that carries a checkable number, which is why it turns up on cardboard and paper more than on plastic — recycled content in food-contact plastic is constrained by migration rules.

Defined by ISO 14021. Where a symbol differs between standards, the difference is described above rather than resolved — both versions are in circulation on real labels.

Other packaging and recycling symbols

Symbol Means
Mobius loop (chasing arrows) The producer claims the item can be recycled — not that it will be, and not that your council collects it.
Green Dot (Der Grüne Punkt) The producer paid into a national packaging recovery scheme. It does not mean the pack is recyclable, recycled, or made of recycled material.
Tidyman Dispose of this thoughtfully. It has nothing to do with recycling.
Glass recycling (bottle bank) symbol Take this glass to a bottle bank or glass collection.
Aluminium recycling (alu) The item is aluminium and can be recycled as aluminium.
Recyclable steel The item is steel — usually tinplate — and is separated magnetically for recycling.
Compostable seedling (EN 13432) Certified to break down in an industrial composting facility — not in a home heap, a bin or the environment.
Home compostable Certified to break down in an ordinary garden compost heap at ambient temperature.
FSC (Forest Stewardship Council) The wood or paper comes from forests audited against the Forest Stewardship Council standard.
PEFC (Programme for the Endorsement of Forest Certification) The wood or paper is certified under a national forestry scheme that PEFC endorses.
OPRL — Recycle / Don't Recycle (UK) Whether this specific component is collected by most UK councils.
Triman (France) In France, this product or packaging is subject to sorting rules and must not go in the general waste.
Estimated sign (℮) The quantity is an average across the batch, checked under the EU average-quantity system.

Common questions

What does the mobius loop with a percentage symbol mean?
The pack contains that percentage of recycled material.
What does it look like?
The three chasing arrows with a number and per-cent sign inside or beside them, such as 80%.

Related pages

Sources

  1. Official vendor product documentation — At One Place

How these figures are compiled and checked