A Word About Recycling
Earth Day is again coming up. However, rather than just a one-day activity, this year a three-day activity is planned… starting on April 20-22. Today, we will mention a website to see a few of the activities plans planned…including a recycling game you can play if you’re still holed-up with the virus. Incidentally, this is the 51st year of celebrating Earth Day.
Because there are too many Earth Day activities to cover here, if you Google the Earth Day Network, you will find a variety of items to help make this earth a better place to live and to help save the environment. Instead for today, we will just touch on one story we found very interesting. It concerns a young lad name Ryan from Orange County, Calif.
It seems at age 3, in 2012, Ryan went with his father to a local recycling center to take the cans and bottles Ryan had collected. That visit hooked him into recycling. The next day, he told his mom and dad he wanted to give all the nearby neighbors a plastic bag for the empty cans and bottles.
We find, “Not only did the local neighbors save their cans and bottles for Ryan but so did their friends, families and co-workers.” One of his early primary goals for recycling was “… to keep cans and bottles from reaching the ocean where it’s harmful to the environment.” (One of the T-shirts he sells has that as a logo.)
Then in 2016, Ryan’s recycling story went viral. This was the start of his being featured on many websites, television, and radio stations around the world. This included NBC, CNN, PBS, and Fox News. (Maybe you’ve seen him on TV, I don’t remember ever having that privilege.)
In 2017, he was recognized as the “2017 Citizen of the Year” by his hometown. And that same year, he was noted as one of the 100 most influential people of the year by the Orange County Register. Add to that, in 2018 he was selected by MSN as one of the top 15 kids changing the world.
Not stopping there, in 2019 and 2020, Good Housekeeping included him in their list of 40 kids who are improving the world. Also in 2020, Ryan was acknowledged by Reader’s Digest in their ‘List of Kids of the Decade Changing the World.’ He was also featured in the National Geographic magazine.
He has started a company, RyansRecycling.com, which sells buttons, decals, water bottles with a logo, several styles of T-shirts (such as one with the logo ‘Make the Sea Trash Free’, and caps. Profits from it are going towards providing more publicity for the recycling effort (and also to help pay for his later going to college).
Not too bad for a young man just starting out in life. Can only imagine where the rest of his life will take him for all his efforts and enthusiasm.
Till next week, do have an enjoyable, safe, and virus-free one...
Ollie (and wife Mary, who is currently up in MN where they both grew up) are local citizens concerned with the environment and helping others. He is a retired Air Force fighter and instructor pilot plus a graduate of Leadership San Marcos. He received his degrees at Texas State University, where he worked on staff before totally retiring.
For questions or comments, he invites you to call him at (512) 753-9525 (but not too early) or e-mail omaier@TxState.edu
