Smugglers who are bringing in farm plastic from Northern Ireland and Britain are causing a build-up of thousands of tonnes of waste, it was claimed yesterday.
Seán Campbell, collections manager with the Irish Farm Film Producers Group, said the smuggled farm plastics - on which no recycling levies are paid - was endangering a very successful recycling scheme.
He said the company was forced to announce a postponement of farm-plastic collections last week because it had run out of funds to carry on its work.
"We have already collected 12,500 tonnes of plastic from farms across the country and this far exceeds the agreed target set by the Government for collection," he said.
This represents an increase of 47 per cent on the total amount collected in 2004 and is 50 per cent above the Government agreed target for 2005. Farmers in the Republic use between 18,000 and 20,000 tonnes of plastic wrapping annually.
"The problem here is that we have been told there is a lot of plastic coming from the North and Britain and is being sold illegally here," Mr Campbell said.
"These operators are undercutting the local sellers because there is no similar levy in the North or Britain. In the eight years since the scheme began, none of these people have been prosecuted and we are concerned that nothing has been done about that.
"If we want the whole lot collected we will have to have funds either from the Department of the Environment or from some other source."