Unauthorized waste yard on natural preserve closed after Átlátszó’s report

For years the municipal waste yard in Kisoroszi has been operating without a permit on a protected natural area. Two days after we reported on the matter, the Pest County Government Office closed the site, despite the protestation of the local mayor.

Somebody or other does not like the long-serving mayor of the small town of Kisoroszi, Csaba Molnár, because he is constantly being reported to the authorities. At least that is how Molnár commented on the incident at an extraordinary town council meeting. “The purpose of this is to do the village a disservice again, to close down the waste yard, leaving much more trash everywhere,” the mayor said at the time.

It is wonderful if a municipality has a waste yard, but it is not very common to have one in a protected natural area, a ’Natura 2000’ preserve. Especially not without a permit. The fact that the waste yard in Kisoroszi has been operating for years without any kind of permit came to light after a report from a local, which prompt the Danube-Ipoly National Park Directorate (DINPI)’s nature conservation patrol service to carry out a site visit in the area where the yard is located.

The entrance to the waste yard in Kisorosz (photo by the author)

The letter from DINPI, which was read out by the mayor at the council meeting on 15 October, revealed that on 3 October 2024 they had inspected a sand extraction site used during the flooding, and presumably stumbled upon the waste yard. When they checked it, they asked for permits, which turned out not to exist.

Two days after we published a story on the matter, the Pest County Government Office’s Environment, Nature Protection and Waste Management Authority carried out an inspection of the site, “which resulted in its immediate closure. “We hereby ask residents to kindly arrange for the removal of the waste generated.” – posted on the municipality’s Facebook page on 31 October.

There has been a lot of outrage about the incident in the local social media groups, but surprisingly, not over the illegal waste yard itself. Instead everyone is wondering who reported the illegal dump. Some people fear after the waste yard’s closure, everything will be full of rubbish.

The debate, which often deteriorated into personal insults, is also strange because it is unclear if the waste dump was really reported to the authorities by anyone. It could easily be that the national park inspectors simply stumbled upon it during their on-site visit.

Whatever the truth is, it does not help that Mayor Csaba Molnár is trying to portray the case of the yard as if the alleged whistleblower’s aim was to attack him or to inconvenience the locals.

Molnár, who is serving his fifth term as mayor of Kisoroszi, was clearly aware that the yard did not have any permit. This is confirmed by his comments on the DINPI letter at the 15 October council meeting:

“It will be very easy to send them (the DINPI inspectors) the permits because there are none. The person who reported us knew exactly that there was no permit and there never was.”

The town council members we interviewed said they were not aware of the problem, and that they first heard about the unathorized site at the Council of Representatives meeting. What will happen to the garbage, where the waste collected by the population will go, and how much revenue the municipality has generated (or if any) from the waste collection, was not revealed. We contacted the mayor, Csaba Molnár, but he did not provide any information.

The mayor, who has led Kisoroszi since 2002 with one term out of office (2014-2019), is no doubt well aware of the environmental sensitivity of Szentendrei Island (where Kisorossi is located), a source of drinking water for Budapest. What we know is that the local government is now advising residents to use the waste yards of two neighboring towns.