Fast-food outlets should consider doing away with wrappers for chopsticks, dispensing sugar from common containers instead of individual packets and other ways to cut down on disposable waste, a concern group says.
Targeting three popular fast-food restaurants - Cafe de Coral, Fairwood and Maxim's - a Green Sense survey found diners on average threw away more that 10 million disposable items a month.
Cafe de Coral accounted for more than half the total while Maxim's was responsible for just over 20 per cent.
The survey was carried out at the end of last year and in March and April this year.
From midday to 2pm, a total of 66,312 sheets of meal tray paper were thrown away at the 128 Cafe de Coral, 79 Fairwood and 62 Maxim's outlets covered by the survey.
'If the amount of tray paper used during a lunchtime is about 66,000, one month would result in roughly 2 million sheets of paper. This is equivalent to the total area of 17 football pitches,' a Green Sense spokesman said.