LOS ANGELES - Los Angeles will soon be the largest city in the United States to outlaw plastic bags at retail when a measure approved Wednesday goes into effect, the Associated Press reports. The City Council voted overwhelmingly to prohibit single-use plastic bags after completion of an environmental impact study and adoption of an ordinance.

The law will be similar to bans currently in place in 48 other California localities. After the ordinance goes into effect, larger stores will have six months to phase out plastic bags, plus another half a year to give shoppers free paper bags. Smaller stores would be given a year to stop using plastic bags.

After 12 months, retailers would be allowed to charge a dime for paper bags, with residents on government assistance getting the paper bags for free. Los Angeles residents use 2.7 billion plastic bags annually.

Los Angeles, with nearly 4 million residents, will be the nation€™s largest city to ban carry-out plastic bags, said Enrique Zaldivar, director of the city€™s Bureau of Sanitation. The city uses 2.7 billion single-use bags a year.

During the meeting held prior to the vote, actress Julia Louis-Dreyfus threw her support behind a citywide ban on plastic bags. Other opponents said the impact of plastic bags on the environment has been hyped too much, that a ban would make consumers purchase paper and reusable bags that would fill landfills anyway.

With stores already offering reusable cloth and plastic bags, "the city council does not need to mandate consumer behavior," said Cathy Browne, general manager of bag-manufacturer Crown Poly. "Let the market dictate consumer choice."

Last month, Solana Beach banned plastic bags with an ordinance that levied a heavy fine on violators. Across the country in Vermont, that state€™s plastic bag ban will go into effect July 1.