Policy makers in many countries have perceived plastic-bag littering, its associated waste disposal and consumer behaviour as a cause of environmental problems. It is for this reason that many governments are now taking action. The plastic-bag legislation in South Africa combined elements of regulation with a levy per bag, similar to that applied by the Irish, in an e¤ort to reduce the consumption of these bags. Charging for bags ensued in May 2003 with a …xed nominal price of 46 rand cents for 24-litre bags across all retailers. The level of the levy charge in South Africa is too small; hence, it has only been successful in reducing plastic-bag demand in the short term. Over time, the e¤ectiveness of the levy is diminishing despite its comprehensive application at checkout points. Hence, the …ndings of this study suggest that the levy has failed partially. It is evident that the levy should be set su¢ ciently high if consumer behaviour is to be in ‡uenced.

Policy makers in many countries have perceived plastic-bag litter as a problem, and have used a variety of regulatory tools to address it. South Africa's current legislation on plastic-bags came into effect on 7 May 2003. It increased the thickness of the plastic used, charged a small levy and required that bags be sold rather than distributed gratis. These regulations sharply reduced consumption of plastic bags in the short term, but unlike the Irish and Danish levies have failed to curb their use meaningfully in the long run. It is suggested that the initial sharp fall in use of bags was a result of loss aversion rooted in an endowment effect (the bags having long been a free good ). Once consumers became accustomed to paying for bags, demand slowly rose to its historic levels.

This paper investigates the use of charges and standards in dealing with a common externality, plastic litter from shopping bags in Botswana. The country passed a plastic bag legislation (effective 2007) to curb the plastic bag demand. Uniquely, the act does not stipulate the amount that the retailers had to charge for plastic bags, they, independently from one another, set different prices. We assessed the environmental effectiveness and efficiency of the plastic bag legislation by analysing consumers' sensitivity to the improvement of the plastic bag and related price charges. The introduction of the plastic bag legislation led to a significant decline in the consumption of plastic bags per 1,000 Botswana pulas of shopping. The partial success of the charges levied in Botswana was due to the constantly high prices of the bags.

Sharing conservation revenue with communities surrounding parks could demonstrate the link between ecotourism and local communities’ economic development, promote a positive view of land restitution involving parks, help address skewed distribution of income in the vicinity of parks and act as an incentive for local communities to participate in conservation even more. This article estimates the visitation demand function for Kgalagadi Transfrontier Park (KTP) in order to determine the appropriate conservation fee to charge visitors to maximize park revenue. The data were generated from contingent behaviour experiments on South African residents at KTP and three other parks deemed as either substitutes or complements for visitors to KTP. Our results suggest that there is sheer underselling of the recreational opportunity at KTP, which implies that there is room for generating extra revenue to support benefit sharing arrangements with the local communities. The conservation fees at KTP can increase by as much as 115%, thereby almost doubling current revenue after accounting for the drop in visitation which will be triggered by the increase.

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