I think, in general, the waste generated by our out-of-control consumption practices in western society is hidden from us (consumers) because it would function as a disruption of our worldview. The realities of the landfills and dumps that our trash is ending up in would serve as a wake up call to a lot of people regarding the casual nature of our purchasing habits and the negative impacts that they are having on the world. I know that a lot of our (US) waste is actually being exported to foreign countries, with the US paying other countries, such as India, in exchange for us sending out large amounts of our trash to be disposed of in their own landfills. It is sort of an out of sight, out of mind thing for many Americans, I think- including myself to a large extent- where if we can’t see the impacts of our actions, even if we technically know about them, we will not be motivated enough to change our habits. There is a sort of “myth” that we live under in the US, where we don’t see the backgrounds behind the products that we are buying in any way. It appears to a large part of the population as if the life cycle of products begin with the product, in its shiny packaging, in a store or on an online platform, and end the minute we decide to throw it out. The lives and the treatment of the workers who are producing the products, their environmental impacts, and the waste left behind after we are done with them go unnoticed. And I do believe that this is intentional on the parts of the corporations that are producing these things, so that we can continue to go about our lives unbothered by the impacts of consumerism.