An environmental group is appealing with local authorities nationwide to ban smoking on beaches.

Environment Minister Richard Bruton announced the higher fines today while also encouraging consumers to “self-police” when using plastic products, such as straws, plates or cups.

Humans generated 1.8 billion tonnes of solid waste in 2016, including 220 million tonnes of plastic, according to the World Bank.

A duo from the Netherlands think they have the solution to Ireland’s festival-season tent-trashing habit, writes Ellie O’Byrne.

A new waste management report has found that less than half of all litter fines issued by local authorities over a five-year period have been paid.

Luke Rix-Standing chats with wildlife TV presenter Kate Humble about the challenges facing the environment, and finds her in polemical form

From today public bodies, including schools and hospitals, are no longer allowed to purchase single-use plastics such as cups, cutlery and straws, writes Joyce Feegan.

Plastics used to be an aesthetics issue, we simply didn’t like the look of rubbish bags blowing around our streets, but now it has become a public health issue.

Packaging waste generated in Ireland from online shopping outside the country will grow by more than a third this year.

They’ve spelled it out loud and clear: ‘Love your beach’.

The Government is facing calls to establish a waste regulator, because the waste-collection market bears all the hallmarks of “a natural monopoly”, according to a new report.

Our beautiful seas are being destroyed by plastic waste. As many as five trillion plastic bags are used worldwide every year.

‘Bin police’ will be able to call to homes and businesses and demand receipts for rubbish disposal under a tough new waste management regime in Cork City.

Great reform comes after a great change in perception and behaviour. Great social change means making new ideas proactive and rejecting long-established norms.

Thousands of reusable travel cups will be distributed to freshers starting college in Ireland’s ‘greenest’ university later this month.

Overflowing wheelie bins could soon land householders with a fine or court appearance.

Ireland already holds the unenviable position of being the top producer of plastic waste in Europe

This week, news swept the internet of yet another doomed whale, this time off the coast of Thailand, which is believed to have eaten up to 80 plastic bags weighing 8kg.

There is a call to examine whether we should be building more incinerators to deal with the country's waste.

Ireland has a culture of thinking that people will clean up after us, a Green Party Councillor has said.

Supermarket shoppers are being urged to "shop and drop" today in an effort to reduce the amount of plastic packaging used in supermarkets.

Plans for a recycling facility next to a controversial waste transfer plant on Cork’s northside have been rejected.

Every generation faces a challenge that defines it, one that means it either changes its ways or accepts that the challenge cannot be immediately resolved.

38% of the mountain of refuse at Panda’s huge Dublin facility is not recyclable and has to be filtered by hand, says Caroline O’Doherty

Five of the country’s biggest retailers have signed up to a new charter aimed at reducing food waste.

That’s over one million tonnes of waste which goes to landfill.

The ultimate cost of every product includes the financial and environmental cost of disposal, writes Gerard Howlin

Supermarket giant Tesco is to ensure no food which is fit for human consumption will go to waste by February, it is reported.

The Environment Minister is urging people to avoid food waste this Christmas.

It is understood talks have already taken place with major companies including Insomnia and Supermac's in a bid to tackle waste.

The country’s wastewater treatment infrastructure will be fully in place and contaminated sites cleaned up within the next three years, according to Irish Water.

One of the country’s biggest bin companies is increasing its prices, but not because of the new waste-collection measures that come into effect next month.

Latest: The row over waste could be same as the one over water, according to anti-bin charge campaigners.

On waste collection, our choice as a country is to sit in our own squalor or change. Every time we put out the bin, we are doing the equivalent of peeing in the public swimming pool.

There is increasing fear that people will turn to illegal dumping if proposed new bin charges take effect.

One of the people caught on the CCTV footage opened the lid of one of the bins and started “dancing” to flatten the rubbish already inside the bin order to fit more in.