(ECNS) - A farm in Zhangqiu City, Shandong Province, processes 15 tons of kitchen waste a day using 300 million American cockroaches, a local newspaper reported.
The farm, located in a building covering six hectares, is also the kitchen waste management center for Zhangqiu City. The piles of kitchen waste in the warehouse are first transported to a conveyor, crushed and then delivered through a pipe to a large cockroach breeding room next door.
The breeding room is in a fully enclosed environment, and through the glass, people can see the densely packed cockroaches munching through shredded kitchen waste.
Li Yanrong, chairman of the farm’s owner Shandong Qiaobin Agricultural Technology, said the species of cockroach is big in size and powerful in processing waste.
The cultured cockroaches will die in 11 months as they reproduce, and are then dried and crushed into powder that can be used to feed chickens and pigs.
Li said the innovative way of processing kitchen waste produces almost zero pollution while conventional ways of treatment in landfills may lead to air and water pollution.
In addition to the social benefits of cockroaches eating 15 tons of waste a day, the company can get a ton of protein feed, which now sells at 12,000 yuan to 15,000 yuan a ton in the market.
Zhangqiu is currently constructing a new breeding center with an annual output of 4,000 tons of protein feed. After being put into operation, it can process 200 tons of kitchen waste every day, the total waste produced in Zhangqiu, Licheng and the high-tech zone of Jinan, capital city of Shandong.
