ugjkaOne man's trash is another man's garbage
cannedtunaThis meme has been recycled more times than I can count.
I think Microsoft put the recycle logo on theirs because Apple used the “Trash bin” moniker and Microsoft wanted to appear more green or whatever.
Apple sued Microsoft over the "look and feel" of the desktop interface, claiming that Windows was too similar to Mac OS. The suit was mostly dismissed, except in the case of the trash bin. The judge ruled that the Microsoft version came too close to Apple's. From that point on Microsoft used the Recycle Bin.
…And Windows’ recycling bin icons were shit ever since, except for Vista, where the icon actually resembled those used in OSX.
The suit was filed in 1988, when 2.0 was the latest release of Windows. I couldn’t find what the trash bin icon looked like in it, but Macintosh back then had wonderful icons designed by Susan Kare:
Windows 3.1 seems to have had a pretty neat icon, if this page is correct, but it might’ve already been updated after the initial decision in the case, or just as an overall refresh.