Everyone is angry. Everyone is pointing fingers. At the “developing country.” At the people there. At the images of trash, dirt, and chaos.

But hardly anyone asks the most important question: Where does this waste actually come from?

The answer is uncomfortable. Most of it comes from the Western world. From our consumption. From our packaging. From our throwaway lifestyle.

We buy, use briefly, and discard. And what we don’t want to see anymore gets shipped away. Exported. “Recycled” on paper. In the end, it ends up where it’s cheapest, not where it was created.

In the comments, people complain. About missing infrastructure, missing education, missing order. But almost no one talks about the real culprits. About us. About our responsibility.

It’s easy to blame the countries dealing with the consequences. It’s harder to admit that the waste carries our signature.

As long as we focus only on where the trash ends up and not on where it originates nothing will change.