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Ryan's Recycling

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Orange County Business Journal: Teen Recycler Builds Eco-Businesses in OC

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By Nancy Luna
April 21, 2025

Ryan Hickman turned his love for recycling into two OC-based businesses. At any given moment, 15-year-old Ryan Hickman can rattle off how much he earns per pound for recycling everything from boxed wine containers to copper. There’s no limit to what he’ll collect. If it can be recycled, he’s on it—even if the payout is zero. “It’s good for the planet,” Ryan told the Business Journal.

Ryan’s passion for recycling began at age 3, after he earned $5 recycling two bags of cans and bottles. The young entrepreneur immediately saw the potential. “It’s free money,” he said. Over time, Ryan realized his hobby was also helping the environment. He eventually turned his enthusiasm for recycling into two businesses: Ryan’s Recycling, his personal recycling operation where he serves as president, and Recycle From Home—a Costa Mesa-based, door-to-door pickup service initially funded by a state grant that pays residents for their recyclables.

Since co-founding Recycle From Home with his dad, Damion, and business partner Ryan Bloom in 2021, the company has expanded to 14 cities and communities in Orange and Riverside counties, including Irvine, Costa Mesa, Rancho Mission Viejo, Riverside and Corona. Earlier this month, the business got approval to operate in Huntington Beach.

Cashing in: from $5 to $10,000
After his first trip to the recycling center, Ryan began collecting from neighbors, friends and family. His dad, Damion, a graphic designer, made business cards for him. “I made him a logo. We made some postcards, and it took off,” Damion told the Business Journal during an interview in the family’s San Juan Capistrano home.

By age 7, Ryan had saved $10,000. He marked the milestone on Instagram, sharing a photo of himself grinning with $20, $5 and $1 bills arranged to spell out “10K” on a table. The post went viral. Within a couple of weeks, the family was logging about 5,000 emails a day and fielding media requests for Ryan to appear on ABC World News, NBC, The Weather Channel, CNN and Good Morning America. Chelsea Clinton even chimed in on Twitter, now called X. “She said, ‘Wow, this superhero is saving the planet,’” Damion recalled. Ryan, now a fast-talking, articulate teen, said he enjoyed the attention.“It felt crazy. It felt really weird. I liked it, though,” he said. The spotlight allowed Ryan to spread the word about recycling.

Customer Payout: Nearly $900K
In 2021, Ryan and his father teamed up with Bloom to apply for a state grant to kickstart Recycle From Home. Bloom, who owns recycling centers in Orange County, “was very instrumental in getting things rolling,” Damion said. They received $1.5 million in funding from CalRecycle to start a pilot program in Irvine. A year later, they secured another $1.5 million to expand into a dozen more cities. The company now has six vans and serves about 14,000 customers.

Recycle From Home charges a 10% service fee—so if a customer recycles $20 worth of California Redemption Value (CA CRV) items, it takes a $2 cut to pick up, Ryan said. Customers register through the app or website, receive a welcome kit and are paid via check, PayPal or Venmo—electronic payments go out within 48 hours. To date, the company has recycled over 1 million pounds and paid customers $877,000.
Ryan said the service caters to people who want to recycle but lack the time or means to sort and transport materials themselves. “The only time they have to leave the house is to put their bags out on the driveway or the front door,” an energetic Ryan explained. “You don’t have to load it in your car. Get your car dirty. You don’t have to leave your property at all.”

As for Ryan’s Recycling, he still spends about six hours a week on personal collections. He plans to use his earnings to attend college—where he’ll focus on environmental studies close to home. “Let’s say I go to Harvard. I won’t be able to recycle here anymore,” Ryan said. “So, I want to go to UCI so I could still recycle.”

Seal Beach Clean Up with SAVE OUR BEACH

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I had a lot of fun and met a lot of people this past weekend helping clean up Seal Beach with SAVE OUR BEACH, Project3R and all the volunteers. Thank you Steve Masoner for all the hard work you and your team do each month. Our Project3R team found a lot of microplastic and nurdles. Nurdles are small plastic pellets, typically less than 5 millimeters in size, that are the raw material for producing various plastic products. These tiny pellets can pose significant environmental hazards when they escape the production process and enter the environment.

Thank you LA Kings and Mercury Insurance for the Community Hero Award!

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Not my normal Thursday night of homework… Last night I got invited to the Crypto.com Arena in Los Angeles to watch an LA Kings game in a box suite and hockey legend, Luc Robitaille gave me a Mercury Insurance Community Hero Award! Congratulations to all of the other award recipients and good luck to the Kings in the playoffs and thank you for partnering with me and the Anaheim Ducks for our annual Freeway Face Off Beach Clean Up.

2025 Freeway Face Off Beach Clean Up & Honda Center Green Night

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This past Tuesday, we had our annual FREEWAY FACEOFF BEACH CLEAN UP with the Anaheim Ducks, LA Kings, Project3R and Mercury Insurance. We had a great turnout and we picked up 422 lbs of trash from Rosie’s Dog Beach in Long Beach, California. We recycled everything we could. Thank you so much to everyone that came out to volunteer! It makes me so happy to do this each year and it’s a lot of fun to partner with my favorite hockey teams and make a difference together.

The next night on Wednesday, was GREEN NIGHT at the Honda Center for the Anaheim Ducks game. The Project3R team collected recyclables outside the arena before the game from fans and the Ducks won in overtime against the Calgary Flames! Thank you Sarah and team for the hard work getting everything organized, Ally for the Jumbotron interview and DJ JoJo for letting me beat the drum to get the crowd going during the game! See you all next year!

Ryan named in 2024’s 125 Most Influential People of Orange County by OC Register

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Orange County Register 12/23/24

Ryan Hickman — He founded Ryan’s Recycling when he was 7 years old. In the last several years, he’s been a finalist for Time’s Kid of the Year, a CNN Young Wonder and spoken to 23,000 kids at WE Day. The H&M clothing company highlighted him in its global role models campaign, he’s been in ads for Old Navy and Mack Trucks and he did a Got Milk commercial. (Photo by Leonard Ortiz, Orange County Register/SCNG)

Meet the 125 Most Influential People in Orange County for 2024

Ryan inducted into LA Kings/Mercury Insurance Community Hall of Fame

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Thank you LA Kings and Mercury Insurance for inducting me in your community wall of fame at your El Segundo practice facility! I’m looking forward to our 2025 Freeway Face off beach cleanup and making a difference together again. Also, congratulations to Kendal Troutman of Thru GuiDance Inc. for also being honored today for her amazing work advocating for under served communities.