Waste fruit tree branches are sorted and collected, waiting to be transported to the local waste treatment center in Huiping town. [Photo/ntfabu.com]

With its large-scale orchards, Huiping town in Qidong – a county-level city administered by Nantong in East China's Jiangsu province – has made full use of its waste tree branches, recycling them to be used as shavings and other materials, perfect for use in the livestock and poultry breeding industry, among other endeavors.

Huiping town has more than 66 hectares of fruit orchards that grow vigorously, thanks to its great geographical location and temperate climate. Many visitors go there, to pick fruit, admire the landscape and just chill out.

However, until recently there was no ideal way found to deal with the many of tons of discarded fruit tree branches every year, which had become something of a problem.

Then someone came up with a bright idea and the town designated and cleared 10 sites as centralized storage points, hiring staff to help transport the fruit branches for the big orchard farmers.

In the past, the discarded branches were normally burned, buried deep, or left to decay in piles. But now a new treatment method has been found, which uses machines to crush them and reduce them to sawdust.

At the small perishable waste treatment center in Huiping town, the sawdust is then mixed with asparagus and smashed rape straw material and undergoes fermentation, granulation and other processes – finally emerging as raw material that is good for livestock and poultry breeding and also useful for mushroom farming.