Annually, the world produces over 460 million metric tonnes of plastic. And, a huge chunk of that ends up polluting the environment. The meeting of the Intergovernmental Negotiating Committee (INC) in Busan, Republic of Korea ended in December 1 without a treaty to end global plastic pollution.
A similar fate was projected in the Netflix documentary Buy Now! The Shopping Conspiracy directed by Nic Stacey. The nightmarish account of out-of-control consumerism and its consequences is frightening.
A disembodied voice in the film introduces herself as Sasha and in a spine-chilling monotone explains to the viewers how consumerism works. Sasha is the sutradhar, handing out precise advice on how to continue feeding the frenzy of consumerism.
“Visualise 2.5 million shoes produced every hour… 68,733 phones every hour… 190,000 garments every minute…” she intoned. And computer generated but, in the current world, completely believable visuals of products sweeping over the world like a tsunami, accompanied her commentary. Shoes, mobile phones, laptops, cars, bottles, coffee cups, clothing bury the world....
Every single second of the day and night, someone is clicking on the ‘just buy’ button and packages are being delivered across the world, including my home. Right there on my dining table lie two packages just delivered by Amazon. One is a plastic cover for our pedestal fan and the other a pack of herbal tea guaranteed to clear my sinus. It leaves me more than a little uncomfortable and very, very guilty.
But, the trick is not to give shoppers the time to feel guilty; there is no place for that if money is to be made, chided Sasha.
It was these diabolical marketing strategies that ultimately led to employees of some of these multinationals quitting their jobs. Every one of them says that there are no plans whatsoever to deal with the endlife of products that they so aggressively put out into the world.
Maren Costa, who worked at Amazon as a ‘User Experience Designer’ for years realised the horrifying consequences of consumerism she was enabling, directly or indirectly. She recalled the non-stop research and optimisation of the ease of buying of goods. A dedicated team in Amazon, under the watchful eyes of Jeff Bezos, made sure of this.
Not just Amazon, iPhone, H&M, Adidas, Coca Cola and so many other familiar brands figure in the documentary. Former employees speak of their role in keeping their foot on the pedal, bombarding people with temptations, and ensuring they buy and buy and buy, and never stop. And it is so easy, quick and simple. Just one click, that is all.
Paul Polemen, chief executive of Unilever (one of the world’s largest multinationals) from 2009 to 2019, said the multinational reaches three and a half billion consumers a day as they buy the company’s household goods, be it shampoo, floor cleaners, detergents or soaps. Nirav Patel, chief executive of Framework and formerly of iPhone said how products were designed and manufactured in a way that they did not last too long. He pointed out that we lived in a world where 13 million phones are thrown out every single day!
Then Sasha chimed in. Planned obsolescence is key and the cornerstone of a successful business, she instructed.
Even for those of us who are responsible enough to look for the ‘recycle’ label on products before we buy them, there is bad news. Labels do lie, we learn. Experts who work with plastic waste, point out how the ‘recyclable’ tags on products don't mean a thing. The discards end up buried or burnt. A laughable and miniscule percentage is actually recycled.
Designer products that don’t sell in the season are cut up so that the poor who are looking to find stuff in the dumpsters can't use them. The reason? Homeless people using branded stuff is damaging to the brand’s reputation.
Whether it is shampoos and face scrubs, handbags or shoes, millions and millions of dollars worth of products are destroyed and then dumped. It is cheaper to dump them than redistribute them, said one of the spokespersons in the documentary.
And, like it has always been, it is the non-first world countries that are at the receiving end of all that waste, quite literally. Waste investigators put trackers in some of the discarded electronic items. They found how some of the e-waste travelled thousands of kilometres by sea from Germany to Thailand.
The laptops, printers, mobile phones are taken apart in dusty yards in the not-so-rich country by its people who very often have no means of protecting themselves against heavy metals, lead, mercury, etc.
In a feel-good initiative, old clothes are collected by some major apparel chains and sent off to countries they perceive to be poor and in need of their discarded clothes. Most of those ‘conscience clothes’ end up in landfills and in the oceans.
When did we last carry out repairs to anything at home? When my father-in-law used a toothpaste tube lid to replace a missing transistor knob we made fun of him. But that transistor worked for years after that. This is something nearly unthinkable now.
Increasingly, repairing is frowned upon. Major electronics companies are designing and sealing their products (read laptops and mobiles) in such a way that their parts / batteries cannot be repaired or replaced. They have to be thrown out once they stop working and new ones have to be purchased.
There are over 200 fulfilment centres of Amazon across the world. Of them, around 60 are in India. A fulfilment centre is a warehouse. Products are received here from various manufacturers and stored, packed and shipped from here to customers.
Around a fifth of the global plastic emissions originate in India. And, the country enjoys the dubious distinction of being the biggest plastic polluter in the world releasing 9.3 million tonnes of plastic into the world.
Whatever happened to extended producer responsibility? The documentary ends with a demand that manufacturers take responsibility for the end life of the products. The onus is on manufacturers. Meanwhile, as consumers, can we buy less?
Title: Buy Now! The Shopping Conspiracy
Duration: 1 Hour 24 minutes
Streaming on: Netflix