The State will shortly run out of landfill capacity in 19 local authority areas, according to a submission from the Institution of Engineers to the Minister for the Environment.
The submission falls short of naming the local authorities but The Irish Times understands they include city, county or town councils in Dublin, Waterford, Wicklow, Meath, Louth, Galway, Leitrim, Sligo, Roscommon, Tipperary South, Limerick, Clare and Donegal.
The institution claims the "alarming" lack of capacity is on a scale that represents a "national crisis".
It says the reducing landfill capacity is being matched by the creation of a black economy of illegal dumps across the State, with no clear records of where the dumps are or what is in them.
The institution also told the Minister the lack of information on the contents of illegal dumps could lead to further environmental difficulties over the question of how to clean them up, when they are eventually discovered.
The institution, whose members include engineers in the public as well as the private sector, says the Government should immediately set up a national waste management agency to oversee the "enormous challenge" facing the State "in reaching acceptable waste management standards".
The submission criticises central and local government for the "unwillingness by politicians to approve measures which might be seen as politically unpopular".
The submission also takes the general public to task and deplores what it describes as "a national 'dump it' culture".
The institution supports a "crash programme" of waste management infrastructure in each region including thermal treatment and suggests a complete ban on recyclables going to landfill.
It recommends the adoption of "best international treatment practices" as well as the development of a national education, awareness and training programme to heighten public appreciation of the situation.
The institution recognises that quite a number of local authorities have applied to the Environmental Protection Agency for permission to extend the size or lifespan of existing landfills, but according to Mr Paddy Purcell, chief executive of the institution, this only served to prove a crisis existed.
The EPA has also come under pressure from the EU over its licensing of landfills, and particular criticism has been levelled at the agency for licensing a landfill close to an environmentally protected area at Tramore's back strand in Co Waterford, among others.
Mr Purcell said the regional and waste management plans should be implemented in full in conjunction with a National Waste Management Agency under the aegis of the Department of the Environment
The agency would oversee the regional plans and facilitate the creation of national strategies aimed at waste prevention.
Mr Purcell told The Irish Times that the institution's emphasis on the scale of the problem was not to "finger any one county or authority" but to illustrate that the problem was a "national problem which requires a national strategy".
