The Project now covers 121,335 households and the level of segregation has reached 41.03%.

Survey being conducted at the Thudiyalur Town Panchayat in Coimbatore district to

assess the number of households and the quantum of waste being generated.

Recruitment of supervisory staff and Green Friends is on; the project is scheduled to

start shortly.

Mobile environment awareness campaign in 15 schools in association with the

Tamil Nadu Energy Development Agency (TEDA).

One-day training programme for 70 Green Friends in Thoraipakkam

panchayat.

Green friends from the SWM project shave been formed into Self help Groups and are being trained on financial empowerment and federation management.

The Project now covers about 103,749 Households and it has reached a segregation level of 35.7% up from 33% till last quarter.

Apart from the existing local bodies, Hand in Hand has been considered for implementing SWM projects in 15,000 Households of Dindigul Municipality in Souht Tamil Nadu & 10,000 Households in Kannagi Nagar, Okkiyam Thoraipakkam near Chennai.

Additionally we were invited to conduct feasibility study in Fort St. George, that houses the State Legislative Assembly, secretariat and Offices of Indian Army, Cantonment of Pallavaram and at Chennai Port trust.

This has increased the level of delivery tremendously on Hand in hand and we would require continuous support to part fund the projects.

Personnel from Hand in Hand were a part of a larger team of govt officials, waste management experts etc that visited Sweden in the month of September to study the best practices in SWM in a visit funded by SWECO. The learnings from these visits have been disseminated internally as well as to key stakeholders like officials of local body administration (Dept. of Town & Country planning). This was a crucial learning opportunity to improve the projects being currently implemented as well as to plan better for future projects.

The main Challenge faced by the project is the non availability of primary/secondary collection vehicles delays expansion of SWM project at existing project centres.

Pictures:

• Household seggregation being explained (JPG)
• Visit to Waste Segregation Plant (JPG)

The Waste management project now covers 82,282 households in 20 local balodes of 4 districts in Tamil Nadu, India.

The project has achieved a segregation rate of 33% from almost 0% at the beginning of the project. only 2/3 rds now goes to landfill in these 20 local bodies put together.

IN a recent development, the Director of Town Panchayat invited Hand in Hand to make a presentation to all the Assistant Directors of the Town Panchayat and a presentation was made on 16th June 2009 on the activities carried out by the Environment division in implementing Solid Waste Management projects in various Town Panchayats by strictly enforcing MSW rule 2000, the advantages of segregation of waste at source and the composting processes. This was widely appreciated and the Director gave instructions to the Assistant Directors to take the help of Hand in Hand in implementing SWM projects.

The Solid Waste Management project which was started with a target of 1000 households (Turning waste into wealth)has emerged into a large project covering about 80,140 households in 18 towns as on February 2009, thanks to the funds being received regularly from GlobalGiving as well as substantial funding from SIDA, SWECO and Project funds from other international donors as well as user collection fee that has helped support the project. The level of segregation has reached 31% from almost nil and of these 31%, 26.5% is organic waste which is processed into organic vermi compost manure and 4.5% is recyclable waste.

The project is being implemented under the aegis of the solid waste management rules 2000 as stated by Govt. of India. The strategy has been to create mass awareness on environment issues among the residents & the school children and develop a sustainable SWM model to be implemented by the local governing bodies subsequently in their areas.

Apart from managing the solid waste in the local bodies, the project also provides dignified employment to the underprivileged section of the population as Green Friends, who collect the garbage door-to door and segregate in the processing sheds at project sites.

The District Administration had expressed its appreciation to Hand in Hand for implementing SWM projects in January 2008.

Our newly launched Solid Waste Management Project has jump-started and we are now active in five places. In Mudichur, the project has now been extended to 1,400 households and user payment is collected from four-fifths of the households. In Nathapettai, where we have our new office, 500 households have been covered, and in Uzhavarkarai, Pondicherry, 560 households are now included in the project. We are also

finalising a compost park in Kancheepuram.

Thanks to a grant from the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (Sida), our core team has spent two weeks in Sweden and visited biogas plants, recycling stations, compost sheds, and environmental research institutes and NGOs all over the country. They have returned to Tamil Nadu full of new ideas and plans for the future.