[tetromino_]

The idea is to sacrifice one part of the environment (municipal landfill and surrounding land) in order to have everything else reasonably clean and beautiful.

(Alternative being a thin layer of waste and garbage spread all over the planet. First World did that until 1970s; many poor countries still do it. Looks shabby and ugly.)

[dyauspitr]

How does buried poop not keep things beautiful?

[bruckie]

Lots of ways:

- In popular camping/hiking areas, there's just too much of it.

- In dry areas it can take decades to break down.

- In rocky areas it's really hard to bury it deep enough (and so people often don't).

- In some areas (like the deserts of the southwestern U.S.) the ground is really fragile and shouldn't be disturbed. Cryptobiotic soil can take decades or centuries to regrow.

- People often don't move far enough away from camp sites / trails / waterways before they dig a hole.

And even in areas where it's easy to dig, the soil is moist enough to it break down, and it's easy to move far enough from sensitive areas, people are just lazy and often don't dig holes that are deep enough or far enough away.

If people were super conscientious (maybe it works great in Japan?) and/or only did low density camping/hiking, it might not be a problem—and indeed in many areas it isn't really a problem. But I've also been to campsites where if you take 20 steps from the trail you can see 5 or 10 places with TP peeking out from the soil within a small radius—and who knows how many more that you can't see.