California will become the first state to outlaw single-use plastic shopping bags, after Governor Jerry Brown signed a bill intended to prevent billions of them from ending up in landfills and waterways. Beginning Jan. 1, stores with at least 10,000 square feet (929 square meters) of floor space can’t offer shoppers plastic carry-out bags and must charge at least 10 cents for paper substitutes. The ban will apply to smaller stores a year later. Brown signed the bill at the urging of environmentalists such as the Sierra Club, as well as labor unions, the grocery and retail lobbies, and Target Corp. (TGT), according to a bill analysis. They argued that about 14 billion one-use sacks are handed out to California shoppers a year, with many contributing to pollution and blight. “This bill is a step in the right direction -- it reduces the torrent of plastic polluting our beaches, parks and even the vast ocean itself,” Brown said today in a statement. “We’re the first to ban these bags, and we won’t be the last.” Los Angeles and San Francisco are among more than 100 cities and counties that already outlaw plastic bags. California would be the first to set a statewide ban, although all four populated counties in Hawaii don’t allow them. Twenty-eight states are debating whether to ban or tax the sacks, according to Bag the Ban, a website financed by Hilex Poly Co., a bag maker in Hartsville, South Carolina. The American Progressive Bag Alliance said it will gather signatures for a California ballot referendum in 2016 to overturn the ban. The law seeks to “scam California consumers out of billions of dollars without providing any public benefit -– all under the guise of environmentalism,” Lee Califf, executive director of the trade group representing bag makers, said in an e-mailed statement.