After World War II, there was a general change in mentality from reusable to disposable. During the Great Depression and the war, people had to reuse almost everything. During the Great Depression, most people didn't have enough money to buy new things and were forced to reuse what they already had. Later, during World War II, the government encouraged everyone to reuse them to preserve resources needed for the war effort. As a result, an entire generation has grown up with the motto "Use it, wear it out, make it or do without it!". Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an original essay When plastic became ubiquitous after World War II, this “reuse everything” mentality transformed into a consumer mentality. Within a few years the beliefs of an entire generation were debunked. When people learned to dispose rather than reuse, a consumer mentality was created. In 1955, Life magazine published an article titled “Throwaway Living.” The image used in the article depicted a family with plastic items raining down around them, and Life stated in the article that cleaning reusable versions of these products would take 40 hours, but "no housewife will need to worry." This report accurately described the then modern lifestyle of convenience and consumption, in which people used things once and then threw them away without caring where all the garbage went. As plastic products started to become more common, the general population's mindset shifted from reusable to disposable. This fundamental shift in mindset was caused by companies using targeted advertising to convince consumers to purchase their new plastic products. Companies saw a gigantic market in disposable goods. Initially, companies only used plastic to make large, reusable products like cars and refrigerators. Companies quickly realized that people could only buy so many cars, and to make more money, they would have to create a new market for disposable products that forced the consumer to spend money again and again. In fact, in 1956, a speaker at a conference for plastic manufacturers told them candidly: “Your future is in the garbage wagon. The newly emerging plastics industry recognized that it would make much more money on disposable goods and, as a result, used targeted advertisements to push consumers to buy single-use items, throw them away, and buy them again. A clear example of this is the disposable lighter, which first appeared in the United States in the 1970s. Two major companies began producing disposable lighters: Bic and Gillette. During the 1970s, both companies competed furiously with each other and tried to gain a majority in the market through intense marketing campaigns. In the 1980s, annual worldwide sales of disposable lighters, a product that was neither necessary nor significantly better than ordinary lighters, amounted to more than 350 million. These two companies used targeted marketing to attract customers and convince them to purchase disposable lighters, which consumers ended up throwing away and buying more. Please note: this is just an example. Get a custom paper from our expert writers now. Get Custom EssayAfter World War II, Change.