BANNED

L.A. Prohibits Plastic Bags

City council votes to phase them out over the next year.

Would you like paper or … uh, paper? On Wednesday, the city of Los Angeles approved a ban on plastic bags at supermarkets after the city council voted 13 to 1 to ban them at roughly 7,500 stores. The phase out will occur over the next 12 months and makes the city one of several communities in California to ban plastic bags. But L.A. becomes the largest city in the U.S. to move forward with such a ban. The move was heralded by environmentalists who say it will help reduce the amount of trash in landfills and water ways. Employees of plastic-bag makers, wearing T-shirts that said "Don't Kill My Job," said they feared the ban would lead to mass layoffs in their industry.