The Irish Waste Management Association (IWMA) has called for a deposit return scheme for vapes.
It says fires caused by batteries in bin lorries or at recycling centres cost its members €50m last year.
The association says most of these fires were caused by lithium batteries contained in vapes.
IWMA Secretary Conor Walsh said when vapes they "start fires".
"So we've got, we believe, 30 million vapes coming into our waste pool, and we should have zero," he said.
Mr Walsh said that although the vapes can be recycled for free at civic centres and shops that sell electrical goods, the vast majority of vapes are not recycled.
"The idea is that the vapes should all go back to the vape shops.
"They should be collected by the people who put them on the market and be recycled, and that's their responsibility. Unfortunately, that's not happening."
Mr Walsh said he is not proposing a scheme like the one introduced for plastic bottles which relies on reverse vending machines.
"That can be simple as, if you buy a new vape, you pay price X. If you buy a new vape and you bring back an old one, you pay €5 less.
"So the price should be based on you bringing back a vape, and when you bring it back, that's fine, but you pay €5 more if you don't."
Mr Walsh said he does not expect that legislation to ban single use vapes, which is expected to come into force later this year, would fix the problem.
He said the ban is based on a ban brought in for the UK last year.
The response by the vaping industry there, Mr Walsh said, has been to sell vapes that have replaceable prefilled nicotine pods and rechargeable batteries.
"Those are more dangerous to us because they will have a rechargeable battery, and when they're disposed with the battery charged, that's more dangerous to us.
"We might only get five or six million of them a year, as opposed to the 30 million we're getting currently.
"But individually, they're much more dangerous and much more likely to start fires, and that's what they experienced in the UK. They had an increase in fires after that."
