Using cockroaches to deal with kitchen waste is a pest of an idea
Print Edition
An entrepreneur in east China’s Shandong Province has turned the cockroach — a pest for many — into an environment-friendly creature to deal with kitchen waste.
In Li Yanrong’s 6,300-square-meter cockroach farm in Zhangqiu district of Jinan, the provincial capital, 1 billion cockroaches consume 50 tons of kitchen waste every day, which is about one-twelfth of the total daily amount of kitchen waste in a city with a population of 7 million.
Li said some locals are raising cockroaches to supply to pharmaceutical plants that use them to make drugs. However, he wants to bank on the insect’s potential for environmental protection.
The 55-year-old entrepreneur used to work for a drug firm. He got his inspiration from a cartoon clip he watched with his daughter. The clip showed that cockroaches can survive for 90 days without food and 40 days without water.
“Most kitchen waste in the city is being buried in landfills. I thought I could make use of the ravenous character of cockroaches to help deal with the waste,” he said.
Li conducted his first experiment in a fish tank at home. He found that cockroaches are not picky eaters and are fond of fermented foods of all flavors.
Founding the business in 2011, Li has gained six patents and submitted 36 patent applications for opening the cockroach farm. His new factory, with automated ventilation, feeding and cleaning facilities, has just a few workers.
Li said he raises American cockroaches, the largest of all common cockroach species with the longest life cycle. The cockroaches on his farm live an average of 300 days.
He said some people are worried about cockroaches accidentally escaping the farm.
“Multiple sealing measures have been taken. There are water curtains on every entrance,” he said, adding that the fish he raises in his pond prey on the insect.
Li said cockroaches are rich in animal protein. He plans to add facilities to dry and grind the dead cockroaches into livestock feed.
According to statistics from the Jinan Food Quality Supervision and Testing Center under the Ministry of Agriculture, chickens fed with cockroach powder can survive without antibiotics, the fat content of their meat is lower than that of rabbit meat and their selenium content is 1.8 times higher than that of ordinary chickens.
Li said he feed his chickens cockroach powder. “The roosters are so strong that they even peck the dogs,” he said.
Cockroaches were used as an ingredient in traditional Chinese medicine for thousands of years, and their pharmaceutical potential is continuously being tapped with cockroach farms springing up across China.
In August 2017 a group of experts, led by Sun Jiulin, a member of the Chinese Academy of Engineering, visited Li’s factory. The experts gave the factory a glowing appraisal — calling it green and efficient.
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