The creatures' job is to eat trash day and night in their new residences -- garbage blocks which are two meters long, 25 centimeters wide, and 40 centimeters thick.

According to Huo Weizhou, director of the local research institute of environment and sanitation, one kilogram of earthworms can eat their equal weight in garbage in a single day, while their dung can be processed into ecology-friendly organic fertilizer.

Exports said that if the earthworm dung fertilizer is used widely, more than 50 percent of chemical fertilizer and pesticide which still occupy most of China's market share would be shelved.

Huo said that the trial base has generated "fairly good" economic benefits so far and added momentum to the city's ecological buildup. Therefore, the municipal government decided to try out the tiny biological garbage disposal set-ups in some urban communities.

At that time, the life garbage will be disposed at the spot so that the garbage transportation fee will be saved and the possibility of germ generating which always happened during transportation will be ruled out.

According to Huo, the earthworms, imported from Japan, are especially good at disposing of "kitchen garbage", such as leftovers or rotten food, as well as other organic garbage like waste paper and recyclable packing material.

After they eat up the organic garbage, the inorganic parts will be left for machines to reprocess.

Huo said the system meets the three basic international principles of garbage disposal, as it is natural, simple and non-toxic.

(People's Daily December 25, 2001)