SHANGHAI, Apr 20 -- CLEANING workers at some KFC restaurants in Fuzhou City have been picking abandoned chicken pieces from trash cans and conspiring with street vendors to have them resold, the Southeast Express reported today.

A local KFC outlet cleaner told the newspaper that many cleaners in charge of the disposal of garbage from KFC outlets picked up discarded but complete chicken wings and drumsticks from the garbage and then sold them to street vendors.

The informant said some of the cleaners had spouses or relatives who worked as vendors and they then sold the chickens in the streets. He said used to do the same thing with his mother but he felt guilty because the chickens were "really disgusting."

"The chickens were wrapped with the trash but we can't wash them in case the appearance looks unattractive," he said.

He said a cleaner can earn 300 yuan (US$38.86) a month in wages from KFC but selling chickens "rescued" from the trash can bring them up to 6,000 yuan a month.

"A drumstick is sold at two yuan and a chicken wing is 1.5 yuan," he told the newspaper. "The job is popular because of the 'potential income.'"

The newspaper reporter went to a booth which sells such chickens and took a picture.

The chickens look similar to KFC's, even the skewer "look like" the one from KFC. The vendor told the reporter that the chickens were provided by her husband.

The reporter followed the woman and found her husband was a KFC cleaner, surnamed He.