How about these numbers: Americans spent $165 billion on consumer electronics in 2010, and we bought more than 260,000 computers a day. E-waste is the fastest-growing stream of waste in the world (there are approximately 40 million metric tons of it each year worldwide) and is the subject of this fast-paced film by Isaac Brown and Eric Flagg. The filmmakers have turned statistics into a human story of many people: gamers who need the newest high-definition screen; an earnest and effective American recycler; and children in Ghana who break apart the toxic remains of our computers, cell phones and televisions. The U.S. is the only industrialized country that doesn’t prohibit the export of its e-waste, so these children are exposed to the lead, cadmium and mercury from computers once used by the Connecticut Department of Health and the EPA.

Screening with:
Island
Liberty Smith & Sophie Windsor Clive | 2011 | UK | 8m
The scene is set with two young women—Sophie Windsor Clive and Liberty Smith—on a casual canoe trip on the River Shannon in Ireland. Under heavy skies, they make their way to a bird-infested island where they witness a gathering of starlings—a “murmuration”—that is so phenomenal and surreal that it's almost poetry in motion. If this story sounds familiar, it might be because their simple, two-minute film—called Murmuration—went viral last year. Island is a longer, yet equally compelling, version of an unforgettable paddling adventure.

Eco Ninja
Jonathan Browning | 2010 | USA | 6m
From the maker of the award-winning short film The Job (Mountainfilm 2007) comes this satirical brief comedy about a corporation that enforces a go-green policy in its offices by hiring an Eco Ninja who takes his duties all too seriously. As usual, Jonathan Browning and Screaming Frog Productions think outside the box—and then recycle the box.

Meet Mr. Toilet
Jessica Yu | 2012 | USA | 3m
For those without access to a simple toilet, poop can be poison. But it’s not just a problem for the poor. Mr. Toilet — a nickname for the businessman turned sanitation superhero, Jack Sim, whose mission is to make sure everyone on the planet has access to clean toilets — says “flies don’t know the difference between a rich man and a poor man, so the rich man is probably eating the shit of the poor man…. Think about it.”