What happens to Maui County’s trash and recyclables?
Maui County residents and businesses created 340,721 tons of waste in 2022. Of that trash, 281,325 tons went to one of the county’s four landfills.
The county diverted about 60,000 tons of trash from the landfill by recycling, reusing or composting. That’s only a 17% diversion rate.
However, the 2020 diversion rate was 35%. Maui County’s Environmental Protection and Sustainability Division Manager Tamara Farnsworth told Spectrum News Hawaii in an email that she expects the diversion rate to increase in the next two years after the county builds a new composting facility. Without the facility, Maui County has to mix sewage sludge with mulched green waste to solidify it and dispose of it in the Central Maui Landfill.
Living on an island where limited space is always a concern, there are big questions about the future of our landfills. By reducing, reusing and recycling, we keep waste out of the landfill.
