Shanghai has the largest number of restaurants of any city in China, a staggering 62,353, according to dianping.com, a leading online platform for restaurant customer reviews.

But these restaurants along with supermarkets, bakeries and modern lifestyles, are creating a mountain of wasted food every day in the city. A report published by the College of Food Science and Nutritional Engineering at the China Agricultural University on October 17, the United Nations' International Day for the Eradication of Poverty, estimated that China was wasting 8 million tons of protein and 3 million tons of edible fats every year.

That is enough to feed 200 million people for a year, CCTV reported. The report analyzed the results of the leftovers found on 2,700 dining tables in cities across the country.

An earlier Xinhua News Agency report suggested that tradition and businessmen were much to blame for the waste. Chinese custom demands that there is always enough food for everyone and that no one is left hungry and no one takes the last piece of food on the table. The Xinhua report said businessmen hosting extravagant banquets were the main culprits in over-ordering and wasting food.

A 2006 nationwide survey revealed that 81 percent of Chinese diners could not finish all their food and that 28 percent never took leftovers home. Men between the ages of 30 and 40 were the most extravagant spenders and biggest wasters.

A part of life

In Shanghai a 2011 survey of 12,000 residents showed that dining out has become a part of life - 66 percent of those surveyed ate out twice a week on average.

All those eating out are now producing some 750 tons of waste food every day, the Shanghai Waste Treatment Center reported. This amount is increasing every year. "As the quality of life improves, more and more food is being wasted," said Fu Liping, the director of the food waste treatment department at the center.

In Jing'an district alone, the government department responsible for collecting food waste from restaurants now picks up 70 tons of food every day, according to an official surnamed Wu with the district's environment and sanitation management authorities.

Most restaurants spoken to admitted that there was a great deal of food waste. A manager surnamed Liao, at the Pudong branch of Exquisite Bocuse, a chain restaurant, told the Global Times that although they provided a free leftover packing service for customers, few asked for this.  

"Most times in our restaurant at a table for 10, there is always food left over," Liao said. The uneaten food is put into a special garbage bin and collected by the waste treatment department.

A manager at the Okura Garden Hotel Shanghai in Huangpu district said that big events like weddings produced more wasted food. The manager, surnamed Zhu, could not estimate how much was wasted every week. "We quietly suggest to the guests that they might like to take the food home in boxes," he said.

But Jin Peihua, the deputy secretary-general of the Shanghai Cuisine Association, said that in reality, many restaurants didn't offer free takeaway boxes to diners because this was an added cost for them. "We always encourage restaurants to offer a free takeaway packaging service for their customers. However, without regulations or an economic incentive, this rarely happens in practice."

Actually, restaurants have to pay quite large amounts to have their waste food collected and treated in any case.

The daily bread

The thousands of supermarkets and bakeries in the city also throw out huge amounts of unwanted food every day. The fresh food sold in supermarkets is either packaged by the shops themselves or prepared by manufacturers. Supermarkets are responsible for disposing of any food that have passed their use-by date. Manufacturers have to collect any out-of-date food they have sent to retail outlets.

This is a not a major problem for small outlets like the convenience store Lawson on Yishan Road in Xuhui district or the FamilyMart on Xincun Road in Putuo district. Staff from both stores told the Global Times that most of their lunchboxes and sandwiches, which had a short shelf life, were sold on the day. Foods like this are discounted when they are close to their use-by date.

At the Croissants de France store on Tianlin Road, a staff member said that if their bread wasn't sold on the day it was made, it had to be thrown out - that was the company policy.

Manufacturers are notified four weeks before their food expire, according to a Lianhua supermarket manager surnamed Li on Dahua Road in Putuo district.

The manufacturers collect the food that has expired or is close to the date and remove it. If a supplier fails to respond to the four-week notice, their food are taken off the shelves after a fortnight.

A costly process

"Food waste in China today is a serious problem," said Xu Shiwei, the head of the Institute of Agricultural Information of the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences. He is an expert on food waste prevention.

Xu said that food waste added to the costs already incurred in the production process, transportation and storage and much of this was the result of bad consumer habits.

"The causes of waste food include the way restaurants prepare the food, how they cook it, the quantities they cook and the way diners treat it.

"Saving food used to be a virtue for Chinese people but this is practically forgotten today," he said. In Xu's eyes, saving food is not just the mark of a civilized society, but an important goal for a mature society.

"The public has a blind spot about saving food. In situations when people entertain guests or throw wedding banquets, they have no concept of conserving food. This has become more pronounced in recent years as the standard of living has risen," Xu said.

Fu from the city waste treatment center told the Global Times that a pilot program, "Green Catering," has been launched in some hotels in Jing'an to promote a better dining culture. The program encourages guests to order reasonable amounts of food and pushes restaurants to offer discounts to diners who take their leftover food away in packages.

"We hope that this will not only save customers money, but will also ease the burden of treating waste for restaurants and government. Most of all, we want to change the old consumption habits and become more environmentally friendly," Fu said.  

If customers are largely to blame for the food wasted in restaurants, it is harder to find who is at fault for the food wasted at supermarkets.

Most supermarkets the Global Times talked to, including Wal-Mart, Lotus, Carrefour and Hualian, said they had no options for handling expired or nearly expired foods other than to throw them out or send them back to the manufacturer. 

Banking on charity

A report published by the Hong Kong Friends of the Earth, an environmental organization, in June claimed that four of the major chain supermarkets in Hong Kong were throwing out 87 tons food every day. Of the dumped food, one third was unexpired bread, vegetables, fruit and sushi. The organization suggested that supermarkets could sell the unexpired foods to food banks or charity organizations to help needy citizens.

The first food bank opened in Arizona, US, in 1967. When a church volunteer found that unexpired cans of food were being thrown out by food stores, he began collecting these and passing them on to homeless people for free. By 2011, 160 food banks had been established across the US and Europe.

However, in Shanghai it seems that legal practicalities could preclude a food bank operating. He Wenyin, a press officer with Wal-Mart Shanghai, told the Global Times that the supermarket would rather not participate in a food bank because of the risk of mishaps. "We wouldn't want to get into trouble if there were any problems caused after supplying food to charities. Moreover, in China we are not allowed to do so according to the law."

Xu from the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences said: "Saving this wasted food is a serious social issue in China, where 128 million people still live in poverty in 2011, according to the State Council Leading Group Office of Poverty Alleviation and Development."

Xu suggested that China should introduce organizations and systems like food banks - China has both the need and the resources.

"To prevent food waste, we need an effective system which we lack in China at present. More importantly, it is a social and moral problem. We should be constantly asking ourselves 'have I wasted any food today?' Only by changing our attitudes will we be able to expect a real change in the future."

Dai Wenyan contributed to this story