JINAN CITY, China — A company in east China has turned the cockroach, generally considered a pest, into an environmentally friendly creature to deal with kitchen waste.
The agricultural technology company said 50 tons of waste can be processed by one billion cockroaches at the plant on a daily basis.
The plant uses American cockroaches because they are bigger and consume more.
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Cockroaches can live up to 11 months on average, and then when they die, their bodies will be used as feed for chickens.
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According to studies done under the supervision of the Chinese government, chickens fed with cockroach powder can survive without antibiotics. The fat content of their meat is lower than rabbit meat and their selenium content is almost twice as high as meat from ordinary chickens.
The company plans to expand its factory and build three more plants. Those plants would house a total of four billion cockroaches, which could then consume 200 tons of waste every day.