Second World War thrift - can it work now?

We did a story on www.mrw.co.uk last week about how 60% of people think we need a World War II attitude to cut waste.

Certainly, the attitude of the 1940's would go a long way to meeting the waste minimisation and re-use sections at the top of the waste hieararchy.

The difficulty is that we live in completely different times. Even in this recession, as a population we have a lot more than (in my case) our grandparents did and access to greater consumer choice. The most obvious example being that rationing in the '40's was essential and was a strong factor in making people thrifty with what they had - now it would be seen as ridiculous.

But, there is certainly a lot we can learn from those times and a bit of thrift now would go a long way.