Thank you for your submissions. I have 2 immediate suggestions:
1) Consider going to a brighter amber, with a little more orange in the mix (not FULL orange, mind you).
2) Please use the slimmer recycling arrows, as mentioned in the contest brief.
I like these designs, and want them to stay in the contest. At the same time, I look forward to what you can come up with in the next few days as this thing unfolds.
I like #12, but it looks kind of sparse and angular. As a start, perhaps strengthen/thicken some elements and switch to your font from #2 and #3. See what you can do to "make it pop".
The amber might need to be darker to show up better on a white background.
I kind of like the recycling triangle pointing to the right- that's a nice addition.
I liked some of your designs enough that they'd probably finish the contest with a pretty high ranking. I understand if you're not interested, but I'd like you to reconsider withdrawing the higher-ranked entries. I especially liked certain features of them.