Some Irish farmers have been waiting up to two years to have their silage plastic sheeting collected, claims the Irish Cattle and Sheep Farmers' Association.
General secretary Eddie Punch said the so-called "free" service of removing plastic from farms, which has been paid for in the purchase price of the plastic, was inefficient.
Upwards of 20,000 tonnes of plastic silage covers are used each year and last year more than 8,000 tonnes were collected by the Irish Farm Film Producers' Group for recycling.
"With all this talk of reduce, reuse, recycle, recycling facilities in some counties are lacking and 50 per cent of county councils' refuse facilities will not take in wooden pallets for recycling and 20 per cent will not taken in batteries," he said.
"Inorganic farm waste disposal is becoming increasingly difficult and costly for farmers. Although ample waste management legislation has been introduced in recent years, facilities for disposal and recycling are lacking in many counties. For example, at a national level there is no facility for disposing of large fertiliser bags," he said.
"A recycling facility for these urgently needs to be put in place. These fertiliser bags as well as chemical containers are expected to go into the weekly domestic wheelie bin. This is ludicrous; there is only so much room in a wheelie bin and as these items are so bulky they are often left behind by the refuse truck."
Mr Punch said that unfortunately large fertiliser bags could not be recycled and neither could chemical containers that were considered to be hazardous waste.
At present they have to be disposed of with domestic waste or brought to the local rubbish dump. Farmers can write off waste disposal fees against tax.
He said there was a serious problem building up on Irish farms where there was a prohibition on burning plastics of any kind and two county councils, Longford and Clare, used helicopters to patrol for illegal burning.
A survey found that 10 county councils had issued fines for burning farm waste. These were: Kildare, Laois, Kilkenny, Leitrim, Limerick, Mayo, Meath, Offaly, Tipperary North and Westmeath.
Mr Punch said a recent survey by the association found that 64 per cent of councils recycle individual tractor batteries for free, although 56 per cent did not facilitate the recycling of wooden pallets.