7-year-old starts recycling business to earn money for college while saving the planet

(Image credit: Justin Sullivan/Getty Images)

last updated 9 February 2017

Since launching his company Ryan's Recycling in 2012, at age 3, Ryan Hickman, now 7, has turned in more than 200,000 cans and bottles and raised more than $10,000 for his college fund.

Ryan's father, Damion Hickman, told ABC Los Angeles his son became "hooked" on recycling when he visited a recycling center as a toddler. "He really loved the actual act of putting all the cans and bottles into the machine and getting the money for it," Damion said. The family lives in San Juan Capistrano, California, and Ryan's parents say his primary concern is the environment, especially keeping bottles and cans out of the ocean. He's definitely a businessman with a heart — Ryan sells T-shirts on his website and donates the proceeds to the Pacific Marine Mammal Center in Laguna Beach "for the sea lions to get food and medicine."

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Catherine Garcia has worked as a senior writer at The Week since 2014. Her writing and reporting have appeared in Entertainment Weekly, The New York Times, Wirecutter, NBC News and "The Book of Jezebel," among others. She's a graduate of the University of Redlands and the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.