"Nearly 30 percent of the food ordered was left on the table after each meal," said Liu Dafeng, manager of a famous restaurant in Shanghai.

There were 30 kilograms of kitchen waste produced in the restaurant everyday during the holiday, said the manager, noting the fish, mushroom and duck soup, shrimp dumplings and a bottle of red wine left on one table.

In a recent sample survey, 28 percent of respondents admitted they wouldn't think about taking home the leftovers.

Resident Zhu Lan said she treated many of her friends to dinner during the holiday.

"I wish I could have ordered less but I am afraid that my friends would think I am penny-pinching, so there is always something left on the table,'' said Zhu.

As to packing up the leftover food, that would be even more embarrassing to do in front of all my friends."

"Leaving something on the table" is an auspicious sign for family life in China.

Only when people are well-off, can they leave food behind, said Duan Fugen, secretary-general of the Shanghai Association of Catering Industry.

He acknowledged that a "green revolution" is challenging over-consumption, which is influenced by traditional beliefs.

"Every restaurant in the city of Shanghai now has a fixed quota for the amount of daily kitchen waste. Environmental authorities make regular checks of the restaurants' garbage disposal," Duan noted.

He said that the regulation has prompted restaurants to urge diners to take away their leftover dishess in a doggy bag.

By the end of 2005, 43 Shanghai restaurants had formed a "green restaurant" alliance, which asked guests to use bio-degradable meal boxes to take away their leftover food.

The Shanghai Public Sanitation Bureau collects as much as 2,000 tons of kitchen waste from catering outlets in the city every day.