`During winter, we have the rats and mice. In summer, it's the flies and bluebottles." Ms Rena Condrot has been living beside Balleally dump in north Dublin for the past 25 years and is fed up.

"It's horrendous. You couldn't leave a baby out in the garden. It would become covered in flies from the dump after a few minutes. You can't even open your own window. And then there's the smell. At certain times of the year, and depending on the wind conditions, it can be unbearable."

An environmental activist with the Lusk Community Council, she and her neighbours have suffered more than most from Dublin's growing waste crisis. Almost two-thirds of Dublin's landfill waste, or 1.3 million tonnes, now passes her home each year on its way to the dump.

The quantity has increased six-fold over the past five years, largely a result of the city's rapid economic growth.

"Up to 1,000 trucks and about 600 private cars pass us every day," she says. "The dump has become like a mountain. It can be seen from all the neighbouring villages."

A report published this week by a consortium of Irish and Danish consultants on Dublin's waste problem gives some indication of how fast that mountain will grow in the coming years.

Each month the city produces enough waste to fill the length and breadth of O'Connell Street to the height of the GPO. About 80 per cent of it is disposed of as landfill. Just over half ends up in Balleally, a dump which will be full in two years.

The MCCK consultants study, which was commissioned by Dublin's four local authorities, makes various recommendations, among them the construction of an incinerator, charges for refuse collections and the expansion of recycling services. But, perhaps most importantly, it challenges the complacency towards the issue of waste.

OF ALL EU memberstates, Ireland relies most heavily on landfill to deal with the problem. In Luxembourg about two-thirds of municipal waste is incinerated. In France the figure is closer to 40 per cent, while in Germany almost a third of municipal waste is burned, well above the OECD average of 19 per cent.

More striking, however, is the way in which Ireland lags behind in recycling. A mere 1.5 per cent of domestic refuse, and about 14.5 per cent of commercial waste, is recycled here.

In Denmark one-fifth of domestic refuse and more than one third of commercial/industrial waste is recycled. Sweden and Finland boast domestic refuse recycling rates of more than 10 per cent, while Germany's stands at just over 5 per cent.

"Unlike Europe and the US, there isn't a strong tradition of recycling here," says Ms Audrey Dickson, co-ordinator of Global Action Plan, an organisation which encourages households to adopt their own voluntary wastemanagement programmes.

She says part of the problem is the inconvenience or lack of recycling facilities in Dublin. "You may have to store waste for up to a month in your home before you can get rid of it for recycling. You might also have to travel long distances to recycling banks. Therefore you only get dedicated people doing it."

Since it was founded here two years ago, the organisation has persuaded over 200 households to adopt the programme. The average saving in waste per household under the scheme is 22 per cent.

Ms Dickson admits, however, that for recycling to gain widespread support a financial incentive is needed. She supports the MCCK report recommendation that households, businesses and industrial premises should have to pay for the collection of their rubbish, based on the volume they produce.

"It needs to hit people in the pocket because at the moment there are not enough people who care."

Indeed, at present recycling is more expensive to the household than dumping. It costs time and money to drive to recycling banks, while purchasing something like a compost tumbler for your organic waste will set you back £100.

However, it remains to be seen whether the concept of sewerage charges, which stem from the socalled polluter-pays principle, will gain public or political support. Already ACRA, the national residents' association which led the anti-water rates campaign in Dublin, has lined up against the proposed charges.

"In light of the abolition of water rates and property tax, it doesn't make sense to introduce a sewerage charge," says Mr Tony O'Toole, the public relations officer for ACRA.

"We accept that nothing is free, but we feel these essential services are best funded centrally. Our experience in the past is that the charge becomes just another way of generating revenue. And we are already paying more than our fair share."

Businesses in the city are also concerned about the impact of such rates. Mr Noel Carroll, chief executive of the Dublin Chamber of Commerce, says business people already feel aggrieved by the existence of commercial levies which households don't have to pay.

This debate is one of many which has been opened by the publication of the MCCK report. Other issues, such as the construction of a new baling station at Ballyogan, the provision of reception areas for the sorting of waste and the construction of an incinerator or "thermal treatment plant", are sure to be just as contentious.

However, the report makes clear that in dealing with the problem of Dublin's waste we haven't the luxury of unlimited time. The city's existing dump sites will soon be at capacity, with the Arthurstown landfill at Kill, Co Kildare, the next to close in 2004.

Moreover, according to Mr Danny O'Connor, county engineer at Fingal County Council, a new landfill or waste management facility will take at least five years to become operational. By that stage we could be looking for more temporary, even emergency, solutions.

Almost certainly, that won't be good news for the residents of Balleally. Nor for Dublin as a whole.