As a first step, we arranged a field visit to the Thanjavur Municipal Corporation(TMC) waste dump yard during May 2005 and held discussions. In addition to the TMC authorities, and the senior level members of PMCTW, the experts from abroad, namely, Mr.H.N.Chatterjee, North-South Study Group, Aachen University, Germany, and Mr.Martin Schroeder, Managing Director (WAS) participated in the field visit.

At appropriate stages, PMCTW has been having discussions with Indian Institute of Technology Madras, Chennai, Central Leather Research Institute, Chennai, G.B.Engineering Enterprises, Thuvakkudi, Tiruchirappalli, and Silvergreen Agro Products Export(India) Pvt. Ltd. Thanjavur, who are Indian Partners on matters relating to technology, project proposal, manufacturing, installation, commissioning and coordination of several other matters.

First Phase of the campaign on “awareness of SWM and segregation at Source” was held on 7 August 2005. Around fifty heads and representatives of schools and colleges participated in response to the invitation from the Municipal Commissioner and PMCTW.

In that meeting the commissioner of Thanjavur Municipality briefed about the present solid waste management by Thanjavur municipality with statistics and narrated the further plans. Detailed Technical presentation was made by the principal, PMCTW in local language with photographs of present conditions of Thanjavur. In addition, he explained as to how the segregation at source is to be carried out in line with objectives of the Humunite-India project.

Towards the end of the meeting, time for interaction was allotted to the participants. Many of the participants appreciated the initiative and they also showed their willingness and confirmed their commitment to participate in this programme.

As a result of the interactions in the meeting, we decided to conduct a Core Group Meeting on 20 August 2005 to finalize the responsibilities and action plans.

The Core Group Meeting was held at PMCTW campus on 20 August 2005 at 5.00pm. The Collector, Thanjavur District, ADSP, Thanjavur, Dean, Medical College, Thanjavur, heads of the schools and colleges, Municipal Commissioner Thanjavur, Chairman, TMC, ward councilors of Thanjavur, Staffs of PMCTW and TMC and representatives from voluntary organizations participated in that meeting. In that meeting the collector emphasized the importance of this project and he extended his support to this project.

The Principal PMCTW made a technical presentation and the action plan of the project. The schools and voluntary organizations took upon themselves responsibilities of conducting awareness programmes and keeping clean and monitoring works of the nearby wards according to their convenience. An Executive committee was formed in that meeting.

As the follow up of the core group meeting the awareness lectures are being conducted in schools and colleges by the faculties and students of PMCTW.

The faculty members of PMCTW visited Thanjavur medical college and they are collected the waste generation data and designed and installed dustbins for the medical college campus.

Also the faculty members are collecting the number of household in each ward of Thanjavur to calculate the dustbin size and numbers.

An Executive committee meeting was conducted to discuss about the work progress of Clean Thanjavur.

As Continuation of the above meeting the faculty members conducted awareness lecture for all the heads of the schools in Thanjavur in the meeting organized by the CEO, Thanjavur District.

The Push Cart has been designed by the faculty members for collecting the waste from individual houses and one model was also made.

The final year civil engineering students have taken their main project for preparing the waste collection route for selected wards using GIS and also the composition and characterization study to analyze the feasibility of disposing the waste by means of Vermicomposting.

An awareness meeting was conducted for the representatives of Professional body and NGO. It is decided that a common logo should formulate for “Clean Thanjavur Club” all should work under this banner.

The second executive meeting was conducted on 23.03.06. The following deliberations were taken in the executive committee meeting.

 The open burning of the waste is strictly prohibited.

• Some of the colleges and Public Places will be created as model campuses.
• Competitions related to Clean Thanjavur programme is planned to conduct during summer vocation of the students and an awareness exhibition is also planned for the public.

A mass awareness rally was conducted on June 5, 2006 (World Environmental Day)