There is a mountain of new and used clothing in the Atacama Desert that is now visible from space
Some of the clothing that is thrown away every day in different parts of the world is dumped in a large illegal open-air dump on the outskirts of Alto Hospicio, a town of 130,000 people at the western end of the Atacama Desert in northern Chile Tens of thousands of tons of used but also new t-shirts, shirts, jeans and different types of clothing, with multiple risks for both the ecosystem and the local population.
Textile waste disposal is not a new problem for Chile, which has long been a top importer of second-hand clothing from abroad. In recent decades, however, the phenomenon has been exacerbated by the so-called “fast fashion”, which is based on the massive worldwide proliferation of very cheap and inferior fashionable clothes that are worn much less frequently and thrown away much faster than before.
It is estimated that around 59,000 tons of clothing are imported into northern Chile every year, made in countries like China or Bangladesh, marketed in Europe and the US and then ending up in the country because it is not sold. As National Geographic recently reported, these garments arrive in Chile mainly through the port of Iquique, which is a few kilometers from Alto Hospicio and has been a free zone since 1975, intended to facilitate the international movement of goods and boost the local economy : today work in Iquique more than 50 second-hand clothing importers who can benefit from the elimination of duties and taxes.
Garments arriving via the port in Chile are selected for resale in other Latin American countries including the Dominican Republic and Panama. Others are re-launched in area shops and markets, such as that of La Quebradilla, which has over 7,000 stalls and is one of Chile’s largest markets. In the open air like the one near Alto Hospicio, which is estimated to contain an average of about 60,000 tons of clothing and has grown so large that it can be seen from space.
“Unfortunately, we have made our city, region and country the dumping ground of the world,” Patricio Ferreira, mayor of Alto Hospicio, told BBC Mundo. Ferreira confirms that only a small proportion of clothes imported through the port of Iquique are resold in markets and shops, while those that are too badly damaged or that nobody wants cannot be thrown into regular landfills because they hit the ground contaminate and then corrupt getting involved in abusive situations with the same consequences. Among other things, Dazed notes that only 15 percent of the clothes arriving in Iquique are second-hand, meaning the vast majority have never been worn.
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By purchasing an existing $44 image with a resolution of 50 cm, we can confirm that the giant laundry pile in the Chilean desert exists and is growing. https://t.co/47SssKPdtI pic.twitter.com/RlfUSBWbu9
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In Chile, the problem of textile waste disposal has been known for a long time, but it has become even more acute with the spread and acceleration of short-term fashion production.
The fashion sector is among the human activities that have the greatest impact on global greenhouse gas emissions, which in turn are responsible for the climate crisis, as well as the discharge of wastewater and the spread of microplastics in the oceans. The global environmental impact of the sector (which has also been widely criticized for the numerous cases of worker exploitation) is so extensive that the United Nations has defined it as an “environmental and social emergency”. There are fears this could make the problem even worse The World Bank estimates that by 2050 the world will generate a total of 3.4 billion tons of waste per year, compared to 2.01 billion in 2016.
Moyra Rojas, regional secretary of the Chilean Ministry of the Environment, told AFP: “There is no doubt about the damage and environmental impact that these mountains of garbage, especially textile waste, are having on the communities in which they lie.” » The problem is that most Garments that end up in landfills are largely made of synthetic materials such as polyester, which degrade much more slowly than cotton garments, even within 200 years. In addition, burning clothes is one of the most common methods of disposal: both this method and the fires that break out from time to time in illegal landfills lead to the emission of toxic substances for the population living nearby.
To get a handle on the waste problem, Chile passed its own version of regulations in 2016, known globally as “extended producer responsibility” (EPR), which aim to make companies more responsible throughout the life cycle of their products than the environmental cost of products, including what happens when they are thrown away. Currently, Chilean law only covers six categories of waste, including electronic equipment, batteries and tires, but not textile products: but the Environment Ministry’s office, which deals with the circular economy, has said it is working hard to include these as well law with the aim of preventing clothing from continuing to pile up on his lawn.
At the same time, some start-ups have emerged in Chile that deal with the recycling of a small part of the clothing that is imported into the country every year and would otherwise become waste.
For example, EcoFibra reclaims textile waste and processes it into thermal insulation panels, which have so far covered more than a hundred houses in northern Chile. Another startup is Ecocitex, which is based in the capital, Santiago, and used to process clothing to recover textile fibers that you can reuse to make new clothes. Dilara, one of the companies that imports clothes from abroad to Iquique, wants to open a new factory to convert the clothes it can’t sell into pillow stuffing.
Rosario Hevia, the owner of Ecocitex, told National Geographic that the company’s goal is to eliminate textile waste from Chile. In the meantime, however, Hevia says we need to start educating people and explaining to them that buying a large amount of textile waste and throwing it away has a huge cost to the environment, given the number of garments, and it should be made clear that it is possible to limit the number of items of clothing needed and to use the items of clothing that you already have for longer.
– Also read: What to do with clothes you no longer use?
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