Broken: These Consumer Goods Come At A Price
Broken is a new Netflix docuseries about how 21st-century consumerism has been making products dangerous for consumers through greed and cost-cutting. It’s all episode explores the manufacturing processes and cultural forces behind the demand for four landmark products: counterfeit makeup, e-cigarettes, cheap furniture, and plastic. If you’re interested in learning how to be a smarter consumer, the time is now! Watch the episode of Broken that most resonates and empower yourself with knowledge. If you’re looking to have your mind blown by the all-powerful influences of globalism, consumer culture, brand desire, and mass production, watch all four episodes of the series recently aired on Netflix on November 27, 2019.
Each episode of Broken runs about an hour, with topics given ample time and space to be assessed from all angles. The docu-series offers a diverse set of perspectives, including voices that contribute to the harm caused by the aforementioned products, such as lawyers representing the plastics industry, counterfeit makeup vendors, and representatives from the United States Consumer Product Safety Commission. While painting a fuller picture of the issues at hand, these voices bolster the series’ message: There’s an urgent need for change when it comes to the regulation of harmful products and manufacturing practices.
We will see a sorting plant in the U.S., where tons of non-recyclable material — called by one expert “wish cycling” — is thrown into landfills. A trip to Laredo, TX shows how polluted with plastic bags the Rio Grande got until the city passed a bag ban, only for the state Supreme Court to overturn it after top lawyers argued against it. Who funded those lawyers? Perhaps the petrochemical companies that provide the oil and gas to make the plastic did; they have a massive incentive to keep us choking in plastic.
The episode is weighted more towards the problem than the solution, which is really that we should manufacture and use less one-use plastics. But the problem itself is so massive, and we’ve put ourselves in such a precarious situation, that we’ll have to change our habits and fast. Anyone else studying some sort of technological solution is helping, but the episode makes it clear that their solutions will only be a drop in the bucket towards solving the problem.
Netflix has released a trailer on November 13, 2019, along with a detailed description, “Broken is a new investigative documentary series that identifies and deconstructs the systems that make consumer products vulnerable to fraud, corruption, and negligence – often at the expense of public health and safety. The series uncovers the truth behind the consumer price of the vaping industry, counterfeit cosmetics, plastics, and fast furniture. This investigative docuseries shows how negligence and deceit in the production and marketing of popular consumer items can result in dire outcomes.” Check out the trailer above.