Repak Ltd., Ireland's industry-funded body tasked with promoting packaging recycling, has said the number of plastic bottles put into landfill sites every year would stretch around the country 2,000 times.
The not-for-profit company said the nation's plastic packaging would generate enough electricity for 86,000 homes.
Around 169,000 metric tons of this waste was generated every year in Ireland, amounting to 37 kilograms per person.
Repak found that while plastics make up a third of household waste, just 36 percent of the material was recycled.
Repak CEO Seamus Clancy said: “We aim to build on Ireland's excellent record of packaging recycling and plastic is a key part of that equation. We want to get Irish people to up the ante with plastic recycling.
“A lot of plastic packaging waste is generated outside the kitchen and we want to remind people to ensure they're recycling all they can rather than a high percentage.”
A poll carried out for the recycling focus found one in three Irish people believed it was socially unacceptable to just dump waste.
And three in four would confront a relative who put the wrong item in the green bin.
More than half those surveyed felt those who contaminated their green bin should be penalized.
This survey was carried out for the 15th Repak Recycle Week, which took place earlier this month.