If you’re a Good Person (TM), you’ve probably taken your broken or unwanted electronics to an e-waste disposal site. Maybe a friendly Staples employee has promised to recycle your laptop or phone safely, so that toxic materials don’t end up in your city dump. But the new Netflix documentary, Buy Now: The Shopping Conspiracy,—which began streaming today—exposes what actually happens to many of those so-called recycled electronics: They are shipped overseas for poorer countries to deal with.
Written and directed by Nic Stacey, Buy Now is a searing indictment on modern consumerism and waste. Not only is human garbage production at an all-time high, the garbage we’re producing is increasingly toxic waste. That’s thanks to the rise of personal electronics, which are made from hazardous materials including mercury, lead, arsenic, cadmium and other toxins, all of which can cause severe health problems, if exposed. Yet every day people in developing
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