The top 500 companies in Ireland faced an average increase of 32 per cent in waste management costs over the past two years, largely as a result of higher landfill charges.
According to a survey by Deloitte and Touche, most of the companies have responded "proactively" by putting more emphasis on waste prevention and minimisation, some 50 per cent of them within the past 12 months.
Mr Frank Coombes, a director of Deloitte and Touche, told the Dundalk Chamber of Commerce's fifth national environment conference that 90 per cent of the top companies now had their own waste management plans.
Performance varied widely. Though all of the pharmaceutical companies had a detailed knowledge of their waste stream, the figure for the construction sector was only 40 per cent while a further 20 per cent had no knowledge at all.
Segregation of paper and cardboard is the most common as it is one of the biggest waste streams and there are also good collection and recycling facilities.
But Mr Coombes said there were fewer solutions for organic waste.
But 33 per cent of the companies surveyed said they had difficulties finding outlets for their segregated waste, mainly because of gaps in recycling infrastructure and markets for recycled materials.
Though private sector waste management operators were willing to invest in making up the "infrastructure deficit", the current "laborious" planning and licensing regimes were inhibiting such initiatives.
Mr Mike Wrynne, chief executive of Greenstar, said there should be a clearer definition of the role of the private sector.
There was too much "circular thinking" in the planning system, based on outdated plans.
He said Ireland would only achieve its recycling targets with a more flexible approach, a national waste management planning framework, real leadership from politicians and perseverance by the private sector.
Mr Artur Runge-Metzger, head of the EU Commission's climate change unit, confirmed that Ireland was now at the bottom of the league of member-states in achieving its greenhouse gas emission targets.
Instead of being on course to limit the growth in its emissions to 13 per cent above 1990 levels by 2008-2012, he said Ireland was already off-target by 23.9 per cent, followed by Spain at 23.8 per cent and Portugal at 21.6 per cent.
"The trends in the last two years are not encouraging at all, so there is a challenge ahead of us", Mr Runge-Metzger told the conference.
Implementing a carbon trading regime from January 2005 would be a "huge undertaking".
However, he stressed that the EU was committed to meeting its Kyoto Protocol target of reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 8 per cent overall and said even low-cost measures could cut carbon dioxide by 600 million tonnes.
Mr Lawrence Staudt, manager of the Centre for Renewable Energy at Dundalk Institute of Technology, said wind energy in Ireland could generate 19 times the ESB's current electricity production if it was properly supported.
