Where Buried Things Go

｜

Vol.6— From a “Make It Invisible” Economy to “Design for Circulation” —

The Earth accepts everything we put into it.
But that doesn’t mean it offers us infinite silence.

Hello, and welcome back to our series on learning about the circular economy together.
In this sixth installment, we look beneath the surface—literally—at the hidden design flaws in our society and economy that lie behind the act of burying waste.

“Landfilling” Is Not the End — It’s Choosing to Make Waste Invisible

Plastic containers. An old smartphone.
When we throw things away, where do they really go?

We may think we’ve let go of them, but in reality we are “handing them over to someone in the future”.

For waste that’s difficult to recycle, the journey often ends in what’s called a final disposal site—a landfill—where it is buried deep in the ground.
And there it remains: materials that will never return to nature, lingering for hundreds of years.

1｜Plastic: 5 Minutes of Use, 500 Years of Persistence

Plastics derived from petroleum—polyethylene, polypropylene, PET—carry an unsettling paradox:

• Made in 5 seconds
• Used for 5 minutes
• Linger for centuries without decomposing

Produced and discarded by the thousands every second, these plastics don’t break down—they fragment into microplastics, spreading into soil, oceans, and eventually, our own bodies.

2｜Electronics: Buried Toxicity

Smartphones, laptops, tablets—their circuit boards are a treasure trove of precious metals, but also a toxic cocktail.

When these materials accumulate in the ground without breaking down, rural communities using well water and residents near incineration plants bear the brunt of the health risks.

3｜“Fragile, Non-degradable, Hard-to-Reuse”… Why Are We Making This?

The answer lies in a fundamental structure we’ve long overlooked: planned obsolescence—designing products with intentionally short lifespans to encourage faster replacement.

• New smartphone models every year
• Appliances with spare parts discontinued within 5 years
• Repairs made more expensive than replacement

While it may be framed as technological innovation, the reality is that we’re producing goods that can’t be easily disassembled or reused, leaving burial as the only option.
It’s not just “non-biodegradable design”—it’s design that’s made not to return.

4｜When Waste Is Out of Sight, Responsibility Disappears Too

Burying waste hides it from view—but also hides our responsibility.
Once it’s underground, it’s no longer “ours,” and the problem becomes someone else’s.

But landfill waste doesn’t vanish.
It remains as a debt to future generations, quietly waiting to surface again.

5｜Circular Economy: Designing a World Without Landfills

Escaping this cycle means more than just “reducing waste.”
We need a structural shift to design products that never need to be buried:

• Easy to disassemble
• Simple to reuse
• Made from non-toxic materials
• Designed with their “afterlife” in mind from the start

This is the heart of circular design. Examples include:

• DPP (Digital Product Passport) to track materials and recycling information
• Modular, easily repairable phones like Fairphone
• Biodegradable materials
• Product-as-a-Service business models

These ideas are already being implemented—slowly but surely—around the world.

Conclusion: It’s Not Just Things We Bury, but Questions

Burying waste might look like the end of an object’s life, but it’s often the beginning of a question:

• Why was this material chosen?
• Why wasn’t disassembly or reuse considered?
• Why are we, as buyers, so unconcerned about what happens next?

The circular economy is one design strategy to ensure we don’t leave these unanswered questions to the next generation.

“Design to circulate.”
Let’s imagine that society together.