On August 20, 2025, the Committee on Energy, Environment and Sustainability, chaired by Councilmember Wire, convened to receive an informational briefing from Genshu Price, founder of Bottles for College, on the Recycling and Schools Initiative. The meeting was conducted remotely and in-person, with Vice Chair Los Santos Tem and Councilmember Cordero present (Councilmembers Tolba and Tupola excused; Councilmember Cordero designated as temporary voting member). No formal action was taken.
Good afternoon. Will the Committee on Energy Environment Environment Sustainability please come to order? I'd like to welcome Vice Chair Los Santos Tem to the Chamber as well as Councilmember Cordero, Councilmembers Tolba and Tupola are excused pursuant to Council Rule A D, Councilmember Cordero is designated as a temporary voting member for today's meeting. Pursuant to section 92 3.7, Hawaii revised statutes, this meeting will be conducted as a remote meeting by interactive conference technology with the following procedures in effect for the meeting. Members of the public will be allowed to provide oral testimony on all items on the agenda in two ways remotely and in person in the council chamber. Remote and in-person oral testimony will be allowed when the agenda item is taken up. As both English and Hawaiian are official languages of the state of Hawaii, pursuant to Article 15, Section 4 of the Hawaii State Constitution and Section 1 13 of the Hawaii revised statutes. Members of the public may testify in either language. For oral testimonies offered in Olelo Hawaii, additional time as may be necessary, will be allowed for the testifier to provide an English translation of their testimony if they so wish. Before testifying, each person shall state their name. Each speaker may not have anyone else read their statement and is limited to a one minute presentation on each item. All persons who have registered to testify remotely by video conference or phone will be called upon first. When your name is called, please monitor your screen and activate your audio feed when prompted. I will then give persons who have not registered an opportunity to offer testimony. Please utilize the raise hand feature in Zoom to be called upon. For those who are joining us by telephone only, please press star and nine to indicate your desire to speak. Some friendly reminders and temps. Video conference from required location if possible. If you are also watching the proceedings on OLELO, please mute your television at the time you are called to testify. When the timer on the screen reaches zero, please conclude your remarks promptly. Once all of the remote testifiers have testified, I'll then proceed to in-person testimony in the council chamber. Persons who have not registered will be given an opportunity to speak for the oral testimonies of the registered speakers. Therefore, I will call for objections, and if there are any, I will call for a roll call vote. For the those council members participating from outside the council chamber, which I don't believe we have any today, in accordance with HRS section 92 3.7, the meeting will automatically resist if we lose audiovisual contact with anyone that joins and cannot reconvene until we re-establish contact. Therefore, please announce beforehand if you'll be volunteering voluntarily signing off out of the meeting. Written testimonies, including the test far's address, email address, and phone number, will be available to the public as described on the posted agenda. As a courtesy, please turn off all cell phones. And members, that brings us to agenda item number one. Informational briefing presentation by Genshu Price from Bottles for College on Recycling and Schools Initiative. Joining us in the Council Chamber is Genshu Price, the founder of Bottles for College, who will be providing a brief presentation, which for your information is available online as miscellaneous communication 432 2025. Genshu, if you wanted to go ahead and come up to the microphone, and I'll turn it over to you if you want to do an intro or just dive into the presentation. But Mahalo for being here today. Hello, can you hear me? Oh. Uh thank you, City and County or the Council of the City and County for taking this time to listen and hear my presentation today. My name is Genshu Price. I am 17 years old growing up here on the island of Oahu. I am a recent Marian B. Thompson Academy graduate of 2025 and will be an uncoming freshman to the University University of Hawai'i at Manoa. On top of being a young student, I am the founder of Bottles for College. We are a multi-award-winning 51c3 nonprofit organization that collects recyclable cans and bottles not only help protect the environment, but to also a college scholarships for local students here on the islands of Hawaii. Today I present to you something we call Recycling and Schools Initiative. Baldos for College recently launched something that we call the Bottles for College for Schools program, where we work directly with schools across Hawaii to help them bring recycling to their campus while also unlocking a scholarship for one of their students. Following the pilot year of this program in the 2025 school year, we realized that there was so much more work to be done and are now turning to you, the council, to help us do so. So as I said, Bottles for College were a nonprofit here in Hawaii. It has been a nonprofit for four years now, but this has been a project that I've been doing since I was 10 years old. So it's been nearly a decade of hard work for the environment, for the community, and for the next generation of students to take action and provide solutions for our future. So, as I said, this initiative is actually already in action. What I'm presenting to you today is not just a theory, but is a true living breathing program. To restate the Bottles for College for Schools program is an example of what we're trying to work with, where we work directly with schools to bring environmental education within classrooms while also helping them take action for sustainability within Hawai'i by bringing recycling to campuses.