Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to assess the effectiveness of the implementation of plastic bags ban in Nakuru town, Kenya. Design/methodology/approach – Descriptive cross-sectional research design was adopted for the study. The target population comprised of 500 traders in Nakuru retail market located in Central Business District. Stratified sampling techniques were used to pick a sample size of 167 respondents. Three data gathering tools namely a questionnaire, an interview guide and an observation schedule were used. The reliability of the instruments was computed by using Cronbach-Alpha reliability coefficient. A reliability coefficient of 0.883 was produce which was above the recommended threshold of 0.7 and thus the instruments were deemed reliable. Collected data was analyzed both quantitatively and qualitatively by usage of frequency counts, means, percentages and thematically. Findings – The findings of the study established that despites the strides made to ban plastic bags, there are a number of challenges mitigating against effective implementation. The key challenge being the existence of porous borders which has seen smuggling of the banned plastic in to the country. Originality/value –The study uses data from Kenya, a developing country contrary to previous studies done from developed countries to assess the effectiveness of the implementation of plastic bags ban. The findings of this study, adds to the growing body of evidence that suggests that evidence from western countries are not fully applicable to developing countries like Kenya due to differences in context as well as the broader cultural differences. Hence it is imperative for regulators in Kenya to develop a viable regulatory framework according to the findings reported in this study, so that they can take enforceable actions to mitigate the potential consequences arising from plastic consumption and plastic waste disposal.

Keywords: plastics, environmental degradation, non-biodegradable, waste management Paper type Research paper.