China Using Cockroaches to Eliminate Food Waste

Every day at one company in Jinan, China, 1 billion cockroaches are fed 50 tons of kitchen waste, according to Reuters. Officials there say it’s an efficient way to get rid of food waste as cities continue to expand.

 

The article says 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 stomach illness and beauty treatments.

 

The plant that accepts the food waste is Shandong Qiaobin Agricultural Technology Co, which plans to set up three more such plants next year, aiming to process a third of the kitchen waste produced by Jinan, home to about seven million people, according to the article..

 

A nationwide ban on using food waste as pig feed due to African swine fever outbreaks is also spurring the growth of the cockroach industry, the article added.

 

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Source: Reuters