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Bengaluru: On May 15, India’s Chief Justice Surya Kant likened a section of the country’s youth to “cockroaches”.

“There are already parasites of society who attack the system and you want to join hands with them? There are youngsters like cockroaches, who don’t get any employment and don’t have any place in profession. Some of them become media, some of them become social media, some of them become RTI activists, some of them become other activists, and they start attacking everyone…and you people file contempt petitions,” he said, commenting on the genuineness of the law degrees of some advocates who had approached the Supreme Court over senior designations. His comment drew instant criticism, and continues to do so, despite his ‘clarification’ a day later saying that the media had “misquoted” him. 

But, your honour, cockroaches are important insects. They may be pests in houses but they come there because of how we keep our spaces: garbage-filled and messy. In nature, where most of these insects are found, they play a crucial role in nutrient cycling in ecosystems. 

Nature’s ‘cleaning crew’

Cockroaches – those six-legged, red-brown insects scurrying around in our kitchens at night – are the stuff of nightmares for many. The insects can successfully evade persistent murder attempts, even take wing if they need to. Cockroach phobia has a name: katsaridaphobia. 

But only around 30 cockroach species are associated with humans and considered household pests. Of these, four species – the German, American, Australian and Oriental cockroaches – are the most common. All the remaining 4,500-odd species of cockroaches recorded so far across the world are not pests. They occur across diverse natural systems: grasslands, deserts, rainforests, even in volcanic craters. 

Regardless of where they occur, their function is the same: cleaning up.

“Cockroaches are scavengers,” said entomologist V. Shubhalaxmi. “They eat rotting material, leaves, food, anything. They’re part of the cleaning crew in nature.”

In houses, they come for leftover food scraps.

In the wild, cockroaches break down dead leaves, wood and other organic matter. Though this process releases some carbon dioxide, it ultimately contributes to the formation of soil organic carbon – a crucial part of carbon sequestration. This is precisely what governments across the world are trying to hasten, spending billions to mitigate climate change. 

“They play a crucial role in nutrient cycling,” said entomologist Priyadarsanan Dharma Rajan, Senior Fellow at Bengaluru’s Ashoka Trust for Research in Ecology and the Environment (ATREE). “Cockroaches help clean up the system.”

Nutrient cycling makes the world tick. It is the process by which nutrients and essential elements (such as carbon, nitrogen, and phosphorus) move between living organisms and their physical environment. 

Living with cockroaches

In fact, roaches are so efficient at breaking down organic matter that ‘blatticomposting’ – or using cockroaches to........

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