Shuttling from one table to another, they sweep up whatever food is left on the table in Beijing's restaurants. They are the 'Leftover Clan,' writes Beijing Morning Post on Tuesday.

A man dines on  leftovers at a restaurant. [Beijing Morning Post]	The man (R) waits to collect leftovers at a restauant.
The man struggles for leftovers against a waitress.	The man is at table  gobbling his meal of leftovers.

"It's a matter of preserving food.There's no shame in it at all," said Lao Liu (alias), a Beijing native who has been collecting leftover food at a restaurant for two years now. "Because I am unemployed, I have to save every penny to support my son who attends university."

Lao Liu is a rare case among the 'leftover clan'. The great majority of themare floating vagabonds and migrant laborers coming to the prosperous capital looking for a better life.

They never beg for food or money, nor do they wear dirty rags. Some of them even hold temp jobs. Most have no stable residence in the city, notorious for its skyrocketing housing prices.

Bai Jianhua, 42, lives on a meager income and frequents a restaurant looking for leftovers several times a week, noted that picking leftovers not only allows culinary variety, but also is a good way to save money.

"I left my hometown for Beijing in the hopes of carving out a career for myself," said the single middle-aged man, with a disillusioned look on his weather-beaten face that makes him look old beyond his years.

"I cannot cook myself. Eating here isn't bad but because I'm not sitting with a family people sometimes give me strange looks," Bai, a chain smoker, said while flipping open his pack to reach for another cigarette.

"There might not be another way out for them," said a customer. "As long as they're not disturbing anyone, I don't mind."

Some customers didn't like it, however. A young woman said she felt embarrassed when there were people watching her eat, waiting for the leftovers.

They look no different than normal customers, said the restaurant manager.""It's not against any regulations or laws to pick at leftover food. The restaurant has no right to deny them entrance."

It's a phenomenon that gives cause to think, commented the Yanzhao City Post on Thursday. On one hand, in terms of using waste, the clan does more good than harm. On the other hand, it's vice of wasting food that supports them.

Wasting food is not confined to the city's restaurants. A student cafeteria at the Inner Mongolia Agriculture University throws out 480 kilograms of food every day, the North New Post reported Wednesday.

According to the latest information from the National Bureau of Statistics a total of 23 million Chinese are still struggling against extreme poverty. Many of them live on less than one US dollar a day.