Figures released today show that household recycling rates in different local authority areas vary from as low as 7.2 per cent in Cork city to a high of 56 per cent in Galway city.
The figures are included in the Joint Oireachtas Committee for Environment and Local Government's third report on household recycling published today.
The report has made a number of recommendations on how recycling levels can be increased.
To meet Ireland's obligations under the EU Landfill Directive, it recommends that local authorities develop mechanisms to improve the clean, segregated collection of household plastic waste.
This will require a community-awareness programme to raise the quality of plastics being collected as well as the identification of suitable outlets for the collected waste.
The committee also calls on local authorities to support home composting and examine the feasibility of other organic waste-management systems.
Given that international experience has shown that kerbside collection of dry recyclable material is the most effective mechanism, the committee says such services should be extended. It also calls for extended opening hours for public recycling centres, particularly at weekends.
The committee also wants to place the responsibility and cost of managing newspaper waste back onto the newspaper industry and suggests this could be achieved through a levy on newsprint.
It also makes a number of recommendations on how to reduce the amount of packaging waste produced in Ireland, including the possibility of a levy on non-reusable or non-recyclable packaging.
Industry packaging recycling scheme Repak said it hoped the report would promote further discussion and improvement of household recycling.
However, Repak chief executive Andrew Hetherington added: "We are disappointed that the committee did not invite us to make a submission and that it does not acknowledge and recognise the huge success and progress that has been made in packaging recycling, with Repak reporting a recycling rate of circa 64 per cent in 2005."