Patience Gaia has been named administrator of Maui County's newly created abandoned vehicle program, it was announced Friday.

The program comes under the Department of Environmental Management. The county processes an average of 200 abandoned vehicles per month, officials said.

Gaia, a recycling specialist, most recently coordinated the Hawai'i State Bottle Bill recycling program on Maui and worked on developing the new Integrated Solid Waste Management plan. In her new position, Gaia will work with county and state officials to address more standardized written procedures and plans to improve upon current policies for processing abandoned vehicles.

Gaia plans to develop educational materials to increase public awareness on procedures for proper disposal of vehicles in order to reduce the number of abandoned vehicles.

The abandoned vehicles program staff includes Claude Sarsona and Allyson Higa.