Grocery stores in Manitoba are ordering millions fewer plastic grocery bags as more consumers start bringing reusable bags on their shopping trips.

Major grocery chains across Manitoba have been selling reusable shopping bags for about 18 months. At the same time, stores have been ordering fewer plastic bags as consumers switch to the greener options.

Grocery stores in Manitoba typically order about 60 million plastic shopping bags per year, according to Canadian Council of Grocery Distributors.

But bag orders have dropped in the first half of 2008, according to a survey of member stores, which include the big three chains: Safeway, Sobeys and Superstore.

"They're finding on average that for at least the first five months of this year, they're down about five per cent," said Justin Sherwood, the council's western vice-president.

"It could be that there are less trips being taken to the grocery store, or people are buying different things that may not require bags," he said, adding that a "large percentage" of the decline could be attributed to reusable bags.

The council has seen similar reductions across the country, Sherwood said, and he expects the number of bags ordered to continue to shrink as customers get in the habit of remembering to bring back their reusable bags.

"What we need is a comprehensive approach that provides facilities for reducing bag usage at the front end — and that's reusable bags — and that provides facilities for consumers to recycle bags, and … most of our members actually have in-store recycling facilities that will accept plastic bags back for recycling," he said.

"We need to also get municipalities to provide facilities for recycling. There needs to be more consumer education on this front, because quite frankly changing consumer behaviour is not an easy thing to do."

Sherwood also heads up Multiple Materials Stewardship Manitoba, a group that is spearheading a waste audit in Winnipeg this summer. The audit involves sorting through trash to identify what exactly is being sent to the landfill, and specifically which recyclables could be diverted out of the dump.

The audit will help shape recycling and waste management programs in the future, he said.