Green’s Dictionary of Slang

(orig. US) a waste-paper basket, thus as v. to throw away as waste paper .

1947		(con. WWII) Western Folklore VI 161: Papers thrown in the wastebasket are given the deep six, or filed in the circular file [HDAS].
1956		E.J. Ruppelt Report on UFOs 118: UFO reports were about as popular as sand in spinach, and I would guess that at least a few wound up in the ‘circular file.’.
1967		Lockwood Subs 252: This news, of course, I wrote back to the Navy Department but some bespectacled plank-owner probably filed my report in the ‘great circular file’ (wastebasket) [HDAS].
1982		Psychology Today (Jan. 1983) 13: Every day literally tons and tons of these strips are thrown into the circular file [HDAS].
1999		Saltash Inn (VT) 🌐 We’ll only put up the tried and true recipes, the duds having long been consigned to the circular file.
2005		E. Weiner Big Boat to Bye-Bye 5: She got up and dropped the yogurt cup in the circular file.
2022		J. Hannaham Didn’t Nobody Give a Shit 71: But her mind instantly jumped to the conclusion that Jasmine had circular filed the letters.