California becomes first state to officially ban single-use plastic bags

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last updated 8 January 2015

In a precedent-setting move for the country, California Governor Jerry Brown on Tuesday signed into law a statewide ban on single-use plastic bags. The Golden State is the first in the U.S. to enact such legislation.

For large grocery stores, the ban will go into effect July 2015, but smaller businesses will have until 2016 to rid the material from their stores, Time reports. The move follows the more than 100 California municipalities that had individual plastic-bag laws, and it's fitting considering the first major city to ban plastic bags was California's own bay area metropolis, San Francisco, back in 2007.