Eleven year old Ryan Hickman has become an international icon for recycling and environmental awareness. Ryan started recycling when he was just three years old and has since recycled over 1.3 million bottles and cans (over 72 tons) over the past eight years in his effort to clean up the planet and to keep pollution out of our oceans and landfills. Ryan leads and organizes weekly beach clean up events in his community and he travels internationally speaking about recycling and saving our planet from plastic pollution. Ryan started a recycling program within his elementary school and Ryan also volunteers his time recording educational videos for schools and inspiring others all across the world through his recycling education events and his passion to make the world a cleaner place.
Ryan's story of recycling went viral in December of 2016 and since that time, has had an amazing 200+ million people watching his videos on social media. He's a proud supporter of The Pacific Marine Mammal Center in Laguna Beach, CA and he donates proceeds from his Ryan's Recycling branded apparel on his web site to their organization. To date, Ryan has donated over $13,000 to their organization to help with sea lion and seal rescue, rehabilitation and release efforts.
Ryan is a proud recipient of the CNN Young Wonder award and he's been named one of the top 100 Most Influential People of Orange County, CA and one of the top ten kids changing the world by MSN. Ryan's been listed as one of Reader’s Digest Top Kids of the Decade Changing the World List, he's been featured in TIME for KIDS and National Geographic magazines as well as being a guest on The Ellen Show, Little Big Shots and The Today Show. Ryan is also a top 20 finalist for TIME magazine’s 2020 Kid of the Year.
Ryan's long term goals are to continue recycling and traveling around the world inspiring others to recycle and to think about the importance of a clean environment through his web site: www.ryansrecycling.com and his new non profit organization, Project3R.
https://www.facebook.com/ryansrecycling/
https://www.instagram.com/ryans_recycling/
Follow us on Instagram @oneworldonefuturepodcast to be the first to know when new episodes drop! And don’t forget to follow our host, Ashley, at @itsashleynevison for even more updates and behind-the-scenes content!
