The “Go Green” Third Saturday Recycling project in West Maui is important and very successful. The county should appropriate funds in the next budget to continue it.

Each third Saturday of the month from 8 a.m. to noon in the Lahaina Cannery Mall parking lot, the community can drop off recyclables and responsibly dispose of a wide variety of junk.

The numbers for the program’s first nine months are impressive: over 55,000 pounds of scrap metal, 499 major appliances (including refrigerators, stoves, washers and dryers) and 1,271 electronic devices were collected and recycled.

Add to that nearly 200 vehicle tires, over 3,300 household and vehicle batteries and more than 19,450 pounds of glass, plastic, aluminum, paper and cardboard that “will not end up in the county landfill,” Rotary Club of Lahaina Sunset President Sandy Schneider explained last year, “or as many have seen, left on the county’s back roads.”

Third Saturday Recycling in Lahaina began in July 2015 and is co-sponsored by the Rotary Club of Lahaina Sunset, Malama Maui Nui, County of Maui, Lahaina Cannery Mall and 5A Rent-A-Space.

Only Malama Maui Nui receives funds for this program from the County of Maui. The other sponsors generously donate labor, marketing, transportation and facilities to conduct these monthly events.

It should be a no-brainer to continue this project, especially considering the lack of convenient recycling stations in our large, remote region.

Tell the county administration and Maui County Council to approve funding for the “Go Green” Third Saturday Recycling project.

As Schneider noted, “Third Saturday Recycling is making a difference in West Maui. Let’s make sure it continues to do so in 2017” and beyond.