Is the recession good for environment

I started to collect anecdotal evidence to see if consumption patterns were being significantly effected due to the significant economic downturn. My neighbourhood grocery story tells me that his sales have been down 40% or so from just a few months ago. His other friends running small shops (sports goods shop in this case) have seen dramatic drop in sales. It just seems customers are instinctively tightening their belts, reducing consumption to absolute necessities. 

The stinginess is going upstream with retailers ordering smaller quantities from the wholesalers and wholesalers from the producers. At a consumer level, we definitely are looking to reduce wastage especially with food and perishables. Some of this is resulting in getting back to good old ways of watching your grocery consumptions carefully, which seems to have become extinct here for a long time.  So a good part of the reduction in consumption is surely cutting into wastage which i would wish to believe is a good thing.  It seems to me from this perspective recession may be good for the environment.