A 7-year-old boy in Orange County, California has quite literally turned trash into treasure: Ryan Hickman launched his own recycling business, and is saving his earnings for college,聽Distractify reports.
The young entrepreneur鈥檚 inspiration for 鈥淩yan鈥檚 Recycling鈥� was fueled by a visit he and his father paid to a local recycling center when Ryan was 3 years old.
鈥淗e likes to sort pretty much anything, and he liked putting the bottles in the machine,鈥� his father, Damion Hickman,聽told local newspaper聽The Capistrano Dispatch. 鈥淗e probably got two or three bucks, and he was so excited about it. And of course then he got to sort his change, so that meant more sorting.鈥�
When the toddler returned home, he and his mother distributed plastic bags among his neighbors so Ryan could collect and dispose of their cans and bottles,聽his website states. Friends, family members, and their co-workers soon joined in and, lo and behold, an entrepreneur was born.
Ryan devotes a portion of his week to sorting and cleaning the bottles and cans he collects, and every few weeks, he takes them to the recycling plant. (Ryan’s family lends a helping hand鈥攁nd even more importantly, a car.) Over the years, his family thinks he鈥檚 recycled around 200,000 cans and bottles. He’s also saved approximately $10,000 for college鈥攁lthough if Ryan had it his way, he says he would use the money to purchase his own garbage truck.
For Ryan, recycling is a win-win situation: It helps the environment, plus you can earn some extra cash, he says. It鈥檚 hard to argue with that kind of logic..
Ryan is 鈥渧ery passionate鈥� about recycling, 鈥渁nd he likes to get everybody else passionate about it as well,鈥� Ryan’s mother, Andrea, told the聽Dispatch. 鈥淚 think he鈥檚 rubbed off on all of us now. You find yourself walking past a can on the ground and needing to pick it up instead of walking away and leaving it there.”
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