THE collection in Dublin of paper products for recycling has been suspended due to lack of demand from paper mills.
Household contributors to Kerbside waste recycling, programme have been asked not to place newspapers, magazines or telephone books in their bins.
The central Waste Paper Company, Kerbside's paper outlet, has also withdrawn a number of its waste paper recycling banks from circulation in to reduce its newsprint in take throughout the State.
Kerbside collects recyclable waste products from 35,000 houses through its green recyclable waste bin programme, which has been in operation for five years.
Mr Noel Madden, general manager of Kerbside, said he had to suspend waste paper collections because the Central Waste Paper Company could not buy or accept further consignments of recycled paper.
"In January, the waste paper market crashed overnight and recycled paper turned into a worthless commodity. However, we continued to collect and process waste paper from household collections and gave it to the Central Waste Paper Company for free."
The Central Waste Paper Company told Kerbside it could no longer accept recycled paper last month. "Kerbside cannot collect any waste paper as we do not have the space to store it stored paper also represents a serious fire hazard," Mr Madden said.
The commercial manager of the Central Waste Paper Company, Mr Colm O'Boyle, said the recycled paper industry operated on a supply on demand basis. "We have been forced to stop accepting deliveries of waste paper because we have built up stocks which we cannot sell or dispose of," he said. He confirmed his company had withdrawn most of its paper banks in an attempt to curb its waste paper intake.
Mr O'Boyle said his company could not continue to take in waste newsprint as it was not a strategic raw material for processing by the Smurfit group.
The Central Waste Paper Company is a company within the paper and board division of the Smurfit organisation.
A spokeswoman at the Department of the Environment said the suspension in waste paper recycling was the result of a worldwide over supply ink the paper industry.
Kerbside will continue to collect cardboard waste, bottles, jars and plastic waste products for recycling through its green bin collection scheme.