Maui recycling centers: where everything actually goes

The county recycling center at UH Maui College, the one most of Central Maui used, closed on 30 June 2026 because the college didn't renew the county's lease (Maui Now, 27 June 2026). The temporary replacement is Aloha Recycling's yard at 75 Amala Place in Kahului (county announcement, 28 July 2026). The permanent replacement has no address and no date yet.

Here's the part that'll cost you a Saturday morning. The county's own page for the closed center still ranks on the first page of Google, with hours and no closure notice. So people load the truck and drive to Wahinepio Road, where a locked gate is waiting. You didn't get the day wrong, the internet did.

Where to go now, in order of closeness to where that center was:

1. Aloha Recycling, 75 Amala Place, Kahului. Across from Island Grocery. Takes cans and bottles, cardboard and glass, and electronics at this site only.
2. Central Maui Landfill, 1 Pulehu Road, Puʻunēnē. Recycling drop-off is free. Dumping trash is $5 a visit (Maui County).
3. Reynolds Recycling, 9 S. Wakea Avenue, or Aloha Shell, 110 S. Puʻunēnē Avenue, for HI-5 cans and bottles only.

Maui has four Aloha Recycling sites, three county sites and a handful of specialists, and every one of them keeps different hours. The table below is what each site published as of 22 September 2026. Where the county's page and the site's own page disagreed, we've said so. When it matters, call.

One honest note about the whole island: there is no county curbside recycling on Maui. If your neighbour has a recycling cart, it's a private service, Maui Recycling Service, from about $55 a month (mauirecycles.com). Everyone else drives.

HI-5 is Hawaii's bottle deposit. You pay 5 cents a container plus a 1 cent fee at the store, and a redemption center pays the 5 cents back for anything two liters or smaller in glass, plastic, aluminum or steel. Milk, wine and liquor containers don't count (Hawaii Department of Health).

Two things surprise people at the counter. First, some sites count your containers now instead of weighing them, so a bag of 300 cans takes a while and the person behind you knows it. Second, a lot of Hawaii has stopped bothering: the statewide redemption rate fell from 79% in 2009 to 52% in 2025 (Star-Advertiser, February 2026). That's about $80 million sitting in the fund, and some of it is yours.

The redemption sites in 2026: the four Aloha Recycling yards, Aloha Shell in Kahului (open long hours, cash), and Reynolds Recycling on Wakea Avenue, which also buys scrap copper, brass and aluminum. West Maui has none. The Lahaina redemption center burned in the August 2023 fire and hasn't been replaced (state redemption center list).

Fridges, freezers, washers, dryers, stoves, water heaters and A/C units are free for Maui residents at Hammerhead Metals Recycling, now run by Radius, in the Central Maui Baseyard on Maui Veterans Highway in Puʻunēnē (Maui County). There's no freon fee. Businesses pay. Turn onto Nakii Road, follow the signs past the stone yard, and go right at the fork.

Can't get it there? The county will pick up an appliance from a house for $25 an item (Solid Waste Division, 808-270-7720), but not from a condo, an apartment complex or a gated community. That rule has been the same since at least 2015 (Ask the Mayor, Maui Now). Condo residents: that's why the store quoted you so much to haul the old one away.

A car that's done is free to get rid of, and this is the best-kept secret on the list. The county's Tow and Scrap program tows a Maui-registered vehicle, up to two a year per owner, at no charge, once the DMV has stamped the title "permanently junked" (Maui County). One catch added recently: hybrids and electric cars are no longer accepted. Call 808-270-6102.

This is the stuff the landfill turns away, and it's why a garage cleanout on Maui takes three stops instead of one. The rules, with the phone numbers, because most of these are appointment-only or open two half-days a week.

If a bunch of that is in your garage right now, we do garage cleanouts and know which yard each thing goes to. The paint and the propane still come off the load, though. Even we can't put those in the truck.

If you live in Lahaina, Kāʻanapali or Nāpili, the honest answer is: not much yet. The only county site on the west side is the Olowalu convenience center, three miles south of Lahaina, for residents' household rubbish, recycling, motor oil and a fee-based tire and battery drop. It has no HI-5 refunds and takes no appliances or scrap metal, and it closes whenever the Central landfill does, storms included. Anything bigger goes over the pali to Puʻunēnē.

It's getting fixed, slowly. In December 2025 the county won a $3.6 million federal grant to build West Maui's first real collection center (Maui Now), and the county's own estimate is about three years from buying the land to opening it. Until then, the best West Maui option for appliances, electronics, batteries and tires is a Go Green event: free, appointment-based collection days run by Mālama Maui Nui with the county, usually at the Pioneer Mill smokestack lot on Lahainaluna Road (Maui Now, September 2026). Book at 808-877-2524.

Hāna has its own landfill on Waikoloa Road, Tuesday to Saturday from 8am, which takes the everyday recycling. Metals, tires, batteries and electronics are collected at events there two or three times a year (Maui County). We're based in Lahaina, so if the pali drive is the problem, that's the drive we do.

Everything you drop in a Maui recycling bin goes to a sorting facility in Kahului, gets baled and ships off-island by container. About 20% of what residents drop off is contamination and gets pulled out as trash (Spectrum News, 2023). That's why the rules are so specific.

The rules, then, as a list you can stick on the fridge.

Glass is its own story. For years Maui shipped about 496 tons a year to a plant in Oakland, and when the money ran out the stockpile was used to cover the landfill (Maui Now op-ed, 2024). Local crushing was due to start in 2025.

None of that is a reason to stop. It's a reason to sort properly, because a clean bale gets recycled and a dirty one gets landfilled after a boat ride. Rinse the jars and flatten the boxes, and you've done your part.