After World War II, there was a global mentality shift from reusable to disposable. During the Great Depression and war, people had to reuse almost everything. Throughout the Great Depression, most people didn't have enough money to buy new things and were forced to reuse what they already owned. Subsequently, during World War II, the government encouraged everyone to reuse in order to preserve resources needed for the war effort. This is how an entire generation grew up with the motto “Use it, wear it out, make it work or give it up!” » Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why violent video games should not be banned"? Get the original essay When plastic became ubiquitous after World War II, this "reuse everything" mentality turned into a state of d the spirit of consumption. In just a few years, the beliefs of an entire generation were dispelled. As people learned to throw away instead of reuse, a consumer mindset was created. In 1955, Life Magazine published an article titled "Throwaway Living." The image used in the article depicted a family with plastic conveniences raining down around them, and Life stated in the article that cleaning reusable versions of these products would have taken 40 hours, but "no housewife need not worry about it.” This report accurately described the modern lifestyle of convenience and consumption of the time, in which people used items once and then threw them away without worrying about where all the waste went. As plastic products became more common, the mentality of the general population shifted from reusability to disposable. This key mindset shift was brought about by companies using targeted advertising to convince consumers to buy their new plastic products. Businesses saw a giant market for disposable products. At first, companies only used plastic to make large, reusable products such as cars and refrigerators. Companies quickly realized that people could only buy a limited number of cars and that to make more money they would have to create a new market of disposable products that would force the consumer to spend money over and over again . In fact, in 1956, a speaker at a convention for plastic manufacturers told them bluntly: "Your future is in the garbage wagon." "The new plastics industry recognized that it would make much more money from disposable products and, as a result, used targeted advertising to push consumers to buy single-use items, throw them away and throw them away. buy back A clear example of this is the disposable lighter, which first appeared in the United States in the 1970s. Two leading companies began producing disposable lighters: Bic and Gillette. the two companies competed fiercely and conducted intense marketing campaigns in an attempt to gain a majority hold on the market. In the 1980s, annual worldwide sales of disposable lighters, a product that was neither needed nor significantly increased. better than regular lighters, exceeded 350 million. These two companies used targeted marketing to attract customers and convince them to buy disposable lighters, which consumers ended up throwing away and buying more. Keep in mind: this is just a sample. Get a paper now.