An interview with Mr. Ilyés
As a part of our Comenius project, we should get in touch with a local authority. We
are very lucky, because the mayor of our town, Békés called Gábor Izsó used to be a teacher
at our school, so he always supported our project. As we were working on the topic
’environment’ we decided to make an interview with somebody from the local government
who is responsible for the protection of the environment in our town. We called the Town
Hall and asked for the collegue who could help us with this interview.
We could find out hat Mr. Péter Ilyés was willing to meet us and answer our
questions. We were very excited, because it was one of our first interviews. We were
accompanied by one of our teachers, who also takes part in the Comenius project, Mrs. Csilla
Somlyai. She is a Physics teacher and because she likes nature and likes going hiking with her
family very much, she is very interested in the environmental protection.
We set up a list of questions that we wanted to ask Mr. Ilyés. He was very friendly and
helpful, and he took this interview very seriously. It was a great honour for us and we would
like to say thanks to him and our local government for taking their time and giving us this
interview.
Here you can read the questions and the answers given by Mr. Ilyés:
1. What can the local government in Békés do for the protection of our
environment?
The environmental protection plays a very important role in Békés and we take it very
seriously. There is a part of Békés named Malomasszony-kert where waste separation takes
place in every family house. We can fund it from money given to the local government by
application. We have got good experience that’s why we would like to introduce it
everywhere in our town.
There are a lot of unemployed people in Békés who can do community service. One of their
tasks is to take part in the waste separation. They separate the garbage including paper
(cardboard, wrapping paper, black and white or colourful paper), metal, plastic, glass etc.
The plastic bottles are collected in a separate way in the whole town.
2. How does the waste separation work?
Békés is divided into 13 so-called islands concerning the environmental protection. We
often organise days when the inhabitants who collect and transport the garbage are given
small presents like exercise books and bags made of recycled paper or glass.
3. Do the inhabitants of Békés take the advantage of the waste separation? And if yes,
how?
The population of Békés pays attention to it. We have to be honest and we have to admit that
at the beginning we had some difficulties, but the local government placed emphasis on the
information given to the people in Békés, so hopefully nowadays everybody knows how to
seperate the garbage.
Much garbage is collected with the help of the waste separation. Its recycling takes place in
Békéscsaba and Békés.
4. What can the schools do for the environmental protection?
The schools can be said to be very helpful. We (me and my collegues) have already hold
presentations and lectures on this topic several times at schools and we could realise that the
teachers especially the Biology teachers were very helpful.
5. What can be considered as the biggest problem in connection with the collection
of garbage in Békés?
Unfortunately it is very expensive to have garbage cans for waste separation. The local
government can only fund them from application money. The inhabitants of Békés could
learn to separate their own garbage very quickly. Of course the booklets full of information
about this topic was also very useful. The local newspaper was very helpful, too and it deals
with this problem, too.
6. How many percent of its budget can the local government spend on the
environmental protection?
It is always variable, how much money we can spend on the protection of the environment. If
we can submit an application and it is successful, than we can spend more money on it. The
inhabitants of Békés can help us to decrease the cost by composting their own organic
garbage. By doing it we do not have to spend so much money on the transportation of waste.
We can save about one third of the costs with the help of the people in Békés.
7. What about the traffic in Békés? Can it be regarded as overloaded?
Due to the fact that the main road bypasses the town, the noise level has significantly fallen
recently.
8. How high is the noise level in Békés?
It is 43 decibel in the town during the day, but it is much lower at night.
9. What kind of plans do you have for the future in connection with the
environmental protection?
We would like to involve more people in the waste separation in Békés. We hope to get them
interested in the environmental protection, because it is of great importance for everybody.
The interview was made by Edit Derányi, Csilla Pocsai, Balázs Lisztes and Norbert
Hanusz from class 10.B.
The Town Hall in Békés
Our mayor, Gábor Izsó
Péter Ilyés, official in charge of environmental protection in Békés
(He also took part in planting trees in our town.)