In this work, penicillin fermentation dregs (PFDs) and sewage sludge (SWS) were co-composted to analyze the possibility of recycling nutrients in PFDs. The temperature was maintained above 55 degrees C for more than 3 days, and the final electrical conductivity (EC), pH and C/N all met the national standards in maturity. A nearly 100% removal of the residual penicillin was achieved, and the seed germination index (GI) increased from 0.02% to 83.54 +/- 3.1% by the end of the composting process. However, monitoring the quantity of antibiotic resistance genes (ARGs) showed that the logarithm of the number of copies of bla(TEM) increased from 4.17 +/- 0.19 at the initial phase to 8.92 +/- 0.27 by the end of the composting process, which means that there is a high risk for land use when using PFD compost products. (C) 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.