A new draft waste plan for Kerry, Limerick and Clare sets out to put in place over five years a programme in which almost half of the region's waste will be "thermally treated".
No site, however, has been identified, and no decision has been made on whether the waste will be incinerated in the region or whether thermal treatment facilities in nearby areas will be used, said Philippa King, regional waste co-ordinator.
She said thermal treatment meant that the energy generated by burning waste would be put to use.
"This draft replacement plan sets out how we intend to manage our region's waste over the next five years.
"We encourage members of the public as well as organisations and businesses to study the plan and tell us their views," said Ms King.
"Since 1998 there has been a huge increase in waste in this region, and so each one of us needs to focus steadily on reducing the amount of waste we produce and on recycling more in order to achieve EU and national waste-management targets."
She said a target date of 2013 had been set for the thermal treatment of 41 per cent of waste in the region, reducing landfill to just 14 per cent.
Ms King said a lot had been achieved since the first regional waste-management plan for the three counties in 2001.
Now there were 13 recycling centres and 203 bring banks. Almost 44,000 homes had a regular collection of dry recyclables.
Some 259 schools also participate in An Taisce's Green Schools programme, and 72 schools had been awarded a green flag.
Proposals under the new plan include providing more bring banks and additional recycling centres, brown bins for kitchen/garden waste for more homes and organic waste collections from businesses.
The draft plan will be on public display until December 12th. It went on display yesterday in public libraries and council offices in the three counties.