Li Yanrong’s farm in Zhangqiu district in Jinan, Henan province, houses 300 million American cockroaches that together munch through about 15 tonnes of food waste a day, or about a quarter of the district’s kitchen scraps. “These cockroaches are not afraid of anything soft, hard, sour, sweet, bitter, or spicy,” Li was quoted as saying. China generates at least 60 million tonnes of kitchen waste annually and most of it is processed through fermentation, an expensive, inefficient system that pollutes the environment, according to the report. Li said cockroaches offered an alternative, non-polluting way of disposing of food waste. The world’s biggest is in Xichang, southwestern Sichuan province, where six billion adult cockroaches are bred a year for the pharmaceutical industry.

Source: thestar April 29, 2018 11:26 UTC