Grist has published a long but excellent article by Kate Yoder titled How the recycling symbol lost its meaning. But that article covers much more: a brilliant Greenpeace stunt in a garbage-filled world, the brilliantly simple symbol's surprisingly modest origins from "one-hit graphical wonder" Gary Anderson, then an architecture student, and how recycling was completely created by the private sector.
The one part of the article I am a bit skeptical about is the few paragraphs about the origins of wasting:
(I notified Grist that their "throwaway society" link is broken.)
One thing is clear though: if recycling is a creation of the private sector, it should be no surprise to witness the same sector largely stripping the logo of its meaning. Today's waste management chaos is another direct result of our costly collective failure to protect our environment.