Authorities in China's Yunnan province are cracking down on the resale of 'landfill meat' after local media recently exposed the practice.

Media outlet Yunnan Television reported earlier this month that people living in Jinping county were raiding a landfill where police disposed tonnes of illicit frozen meat, then reselling it.

The county shares a border with Vietnam, over which frozen meat is smuggled. When the smugglers are caught, their seized meat ends up at a local tip.

Occasionally weighing hundreds of tonnes, the meat is often very poor quality and has not gone through requisite health checks.

The product is sometimes buried deep underground at the tip to prevent it being taken.

But the Yunnan Television exposé showed hundreds of villagers at the tip, in an assembly line-like formation, digging up the meat and passing it to waiting motorbikes, to be resold.

The footage shows stray chicken feet littering the nearby streets.

The destination of the meat remains unclear but it likely finds its way in the stocks of local meat manufacturers and roadside food stalls.

Hundreds of villages reportedly join the operation at times.

Yunnan TV said that customs officials had been dumping meat into landfill since at least October 2016 when it dumped 470 tonnes of seized frozen meat.

Since the report aired, authorities said they were looking at ways to curb the practice. Seven individuals who took part were reportedly arrested.

And local government representatives said they will try a more "scientific" and "stringent" approach to disposing of the meat, but were scant on details.

Jinping county is one of Yunnan's most impoverished counties.