Ask the Mayor: Scrap Vehicle Disposal

Mayor Michael Victorino answers some of the most-asked questions submitted to his office staff.

Q: Does the County have a program that accepts scrap vehicles for free? Do people have to cut the vehicles up into little pieces before Hammerhead Metals Recycling will accept them?

A: Mahalo for your question and I am very proud to say that the County of Maui does have a Junk Vehicle Disposal Assistance Program, which allows each resident to dispose of one vehicle per calendar year (legally and properly) at no charge.

You read that right – it costs residents nothing to dispose of their junk vehicles and the paperwork required is minimal. All you have to do is register the vehicle as “Permanently Junked” with the Department of Motor Vehicles and Licensing, complete an Intake form and arrange to have your vehicle delivered to Hammerhead Metals Recycling on Maui Veterans (Mokulele) Highway in Puʻunēnē.

Instructions and forms can be found here.

As for your second question, Hammerhead does not require a vehicle to be cut up into little pieces before accepting it. The company states that vehicles can be wet (containing fluids) or dry (fluids drained); operational or non-operational; and with parts removed or not. Our Department of Environmental Management Metals and Abandoned Vehicles Section works together with Hammerhead to administer this great program.

I would like to send a special mahalo to Kamehameha Schools Maui student McKay Pali, who spent over a hundred hours educating and assisting Waiʻehu and Paukūkalo residents with the County’s program for his Eagle Scout project. McKay wound up removing 21 vehicles, all of which were inoperable, out of our environment and helped residents track down paperwork for their old cars. This is an incredible young man and you can read his full story here.

As a reminder, it is a crime to dump a vehicle anywhere in the county, whether it’s along the road or in a field. The owner will be fined and will be required to pay all charges for removing and disposing of the vehicle.

We are researching ways to streamline the JVDAP as well as improve laws and systems to hold more people accountable for abandoning their cars. According to the exit survey for participants of the program, 30 percent of people who used the program admitted that they considered abandoning their car. Do the right thing and don’t dump your junk!

To report an abandoned vehicle, call the Maui Police Department non-emergency line at 244-6400 and select “0.” Make sure to have the address or location, vehicle color, make, model, and license plate (if there is one) available when you call. If you have other questions, please call the County’s Abandoned Vehicles hotline at 270-6102.

Want to Ask the Mayor? Submit your Maui County related questions to Mayor Michael Victorino by email at askthemayor@mauicounty.gov, by phone at 270-7855 or by mail at 200 S. High St., ninth floor, Wailuku 96793. Questions submitted will be considered for inclusion in the “Ask the Mayor” column; to request a personal response to a concern, email mayors.office@mauicounty.gov.