Sharp, Høj and Wheeler (2010) did a study on the effects of a plastic bag ban. In their paper, they looked whether proscription of habitual consumption can act as a mechanism to develop anti-consumption behaviour and attitudes. Basically they were wondering how people would respond to the fact that they could no longer use an item (plastic bag) that they have become accustomed to. They followed the retail ban of single-use polyethylene plastic bags from the beginning: so  before, during the phasing-out period and after the ban was official. They interviewed 253 people, at the different moments to allow the identification of changes in attitude and/or behaviour. There were 3 groups identified, first there were the people that took there own bags from home.

• People who generally brought their own bags to put the groceries in. 60%
• People who alternately either brought there own bags from home and forgot them, which meant they had to get the plastic ones from the store. 22%
• People who always took the plastic bags from the stores. 18%

There was a phasing-out phase. During this 4 month period, there was a lot of marketing and promotion about bringing your own bags and using less of the plastic bags.

They discovered something interesting. Before the phasing-out period and during the phasing-out period voluntary anti-consumption of plastic bags was minimal. There was no increase in the voluntary anti-consumption in non of the above mentioned groups. The implication is that people are unlikely to adopt voluntary anti-consumption behaviour for habitual  frequent behaviour when there are no negative reinforcers.