Chile’s environment officials have called on the UK to ‘take responsibility’ and stop thousands of tonnes of clothes from western Europe and the United States being illegally dumped in the Atacama Desert.
Maisa Rojas warned that the huge ‘fast fashion’ mountains which are discarded and burned have ‘environmental consequences for the whole planet’.
Since long, the country in Latin America has been an important hub for unsold and second-hand clothes made in China or Bangladesh. The clothing travels from Asia through Europe to North America and then on to the Southern Hemisphere.
Every year around 60 000 tonnes of clothing arrives at Iquique port, Alto Hospicio-free zone. It is then bought by clothes merchants and smuggled out to South American countries. However, at least 39,000 tonnes cannot be sold and end up in trash dumps in the desert.
The piles of textiles cannot be disposed of legally. They are burned to release toxic gases and pollute the soil. Chilean officials insist that they are trying to regulate this trade.
Miss Rojas, director of the Chilean Centre for Climate Science and Resilience who will be Chile’s environment minister in March, told the BBC: ‘It’s not easy to reconcile so many interests such as prohibiting the dumping of used clothing. It’s not feasible.
‘Businesspeople need to play their part and stop importing rubbish, but developed countries also need to take responsibility. What’s happening here in Chile has environmental consequences for the whole planet.’
In September 2021, view of used clothing discarded at the Atacama desert.
Maisa Rojas, one of Chile’s environment officials, has called on the UK to ‘take responsibility’ to stop thousands of tonnes of clothes from western Europe and the United States being illegally dumped in the Atacama Desert
A view of clothes that were discarded in Chile’s Atacama desert in Alto Hospicio.
In the Atacama desert in Alto Hospicio (Iquique), Chile, women search for clothes among tons of trash.
An aerial view of clothing that was thrown away in the Atacama desert in Alto Hospicio (Iquique), Chile in September 2021
Photograph of worn clothes left in Atacama desert at Alto Hospicio in Iquique (Chile), September 26, 2021
Alto Hospicio: Women look for clothes among the tons of trash in Atacama desert.
According to a 2019 UN report, global clothing production doubled between 2000 and 2014, and the industry is ‘responsible for 20 percent of total water waste on a global level’. For a pair of jeans, you need 7,500 litres (22,000 gallons) water.
The same report said that clothing and footwear manufacturing contributes 8 percent of global greenhouse gases, and that ‘every second, an amount of textiles equivalent to a garbage truck is buried or burnt’.
The clothing piles can pollute the environment by releasing chemicals into the atmosphere or going underground.
It can take up to 200 years for synthetic clothing or clothes treated with chemicals to break down.
Chile gets so many clothes each year, that traders can’t hope to sell them. And no one wants to pay for shipping fees.
Alex Carreno, a former port employee who worked at the imports zone, said: ‘This clothing arrives from all over the world. What is not sold to Santiago nor sent to other countries stays in the free zone.’
However, not all of the clothes go to waste. This region has 300,000. Some residents are the most vulnerable. They rely on throwaways for clothing. Others may also use the scraps to buy clothes in the local area.
A view of clothes that were discarded in Chile’s Atacama desert in Alto Hospicio.
Alto Hospicio September 20, 2121: A swarm of abandoned clothes in the Atacama desert leads women to search for worn clothing.
In October 2021, view of the Ecotex eco-yarn factory in Santiago.
Sofia and Jenny were Venezuelan immigrants who arrived in Chile just a few days before. It was a 350-kilometer journey.
The women told AFP were looking for ‘things for the cold’, given the desert’s nighttime temperatures drop to levels unheard of in their tropical homeland.
Chile is South America’s wealthiest country. This country is famous for its voracious consumption.
Fast fashion advertising ‘has helped to convince us that clothing makes us more attractive, that it makes us stylish and even cures our anxiety,’ said Monica Zarini, who makes lamp shades, notebooks, containers and bags from recycled clothing.
However, the fast-fashion clothing industry has encouraged others to start companies that focus on recycling fabrics in order to be more sustainable.
Rosario Hevia opened a store to recycle children’s clothes, before founding Ecocitex in 2019 – a company that creates yarn from pieces of discarded textiles and clothing in a poor state.
Ecocitex does not use water or chemicals during the yarn-making process. It works closely with over 250 women-led Chilean businesses to market the recycled clothes it makes from used clothing.
Men working at a factory that recycles used clothes discarded in the Atacama desert for wooden isolation panels for the walls of social housing, in Alto Hospicio, Iquique
A factory where men recycle used clothing from the Atacama desert, for wood isolation panels, for walls in social housing in Alto Hospicio.
Photograph of old clothes left in the Atacama desert. Alto Hospicio. Iquique. Chile.
‘For many years we consumed, and no one seemed to care that more and more textile waste was being generated,’ Miss Hevia said.
‘But now, people are starting to question themselves.’
EcoFibra also works to address the problem of the waste mountain. It makes thermal insulation panels with fabrics from clothes.
EcoFibra’s founder Franklin Zepeda said: ‘The problem is that the clothing is not biodegradable and has chemical products, so it is not accepted in the municipal landfills.
‘The solution is simply not to bring garbage. But not bringing garbage implies paying more.’
His company’s insulation panels are fireproof, with better noise insulation as well as thermal conductivity than common fiberglass. It is also considerably less expensive.
He said that EcoFibra has managed to recycle and sell plenty of insulation panels, but the demand is yet to really catch on because of traders’ ignorant attitudes.
‘You have to first get rid of all the myths they have in their heads – forget everything they knew about thermal insulation so that they just listen to us and we can present the product to them,’ he said.