Youth nonprofit Bottles for College seeks city support to expand school recycling and scholarships

Gentry Price, founder of the nonprofit Bottles for College and an incoming freshman at the University of Hawaii at Manoa, asked the Honolulu City Council Committee on Energy, Environment & Sustainability on March 1 to help the group expand a pilot recycling program that converts school-collected cans and bottles into scholarships.

Price told the committee, “My name is Gentry Price. I am 17 years old growing up here on the Island of Oahu,” and described Bottles for College as a 501(c)(3) nonprofit that "collects recyclable cans and bottles... to also add college scholarships for local students here on the islands of Hawaii." He said the pilot program at Kapolei High School and Kailua High School collected a combined 30,000 containers in 2025 and that the organization has recycled more than 2,000,000 containers and awarded more than $70,000 in scholarships to date.

The committee’s discussion focused on scaling the…