Environment Minister Dick Roche said he would instead begin "negotiating agreements" with the industries responsible.

"This will give these sectors -- in effect, the producers of the items concerned which end up as litter -- an opportunity to propose positive and meaningful measures to minimise the impact of the items they produce in causing nuisance litter," Roche said.

Roche's predecessor Martin Cullen said two years ago that it was costing the Irish taxpayer millions of euros (dollars) to clean up discarded chewing gum embedded on streets and pavements with special "gum-buster" machines.

He suggested the offending person should pay for the tidy up operation via a small tax on the goods.

Roche, however, decided to give the industry a chance to propose a new action plan, while warning that the threat of taxes lurked in the background.

A previous anti-litter initiative -- upping the price of plastic shopping bags -- has cut their use by over 90 percent and led to a switch to reusable bags.

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