In China, cockroaches put on job to crunch kitchen waste


After the bugs die, they become nutritious feed for livestock

At a waste disposal facility in China, millions of cockroaches scuttle and flutter across stacks of wooden boards as they devour food scraps. The air is warm and humid — just as they like it — to ensure the colonies keep their health and voracious appetites.

In the near pitch-dark, you can hear them before you see them — millions of cockroaches scuttling and fluttering across stacks of wooden boards as they devour food scraps by the tonne in a novel form of urban waste disposal.

Expanding Chinese cities are generating more food waste than they can accommodate in landfills, and cockroaches could be a way to get rid of hills of food scraps, providing nutritious food for livestock when the bugs eventually die and, some say, cures for various stomach-related illness, and beauty treatments.

In Jinan, capital of Shandong province, a billion cockroaches are being fed with 50 tonnes of kitchen waste a day — the equivalent in weight to seven adult elephants. The waste arrives before daybreak at the plant run by Shandong Qiaobin Agricultural Technology Co, where it is fed through pipes to cockroaches in their cells....Read more

 

Source web page: The hindu


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