Not all the dunes in Chile’s Atacama Desert consist of sand and earth — some are mountains of discarded unsold fast-fashion clothing, reports say.
According to a report by Yahoo! News, the driest desert in the world has become a dumping ground for tons of unsold clothing and is increasingly suffering from pollution caused by it.
Every year, in northern Chile some 59,000 tons of clothing arrive at the Iquique port in the Alto Hospicio free zone, the report said. This is secondhand and unsold clothing, made in China or Bangladesh that has passed through Europe, Asia, or the U.S. before arriving in Chile to be resold in other Latin American countries.
While some are purchased by clothing merchants in Santiago, the country’s capital, reportedly, much is smuggled to other Latin American countries — all of which only account for about 20,000 tons. As for the remaining unsold clothing, at least 39,000 tons go to rubbish dumps in the Atacama Desert, the news outlet said.
Franklin Zepeda, the founder of EcoFibra, a company that makes insulation panels using discarded clothing said: “The problem is that the clothing is not biodegradable and has chemical products, so it is not accepted in the municipal landfills,” Yahoo! News cited.
About the firm he created in 2018, Zepeda told Agence France-Presse that he wanted to stop being the problem and start being the solution.”
While fast fashion is affordable, it is extremely harmful to the environment, Insider reported. It was found that in 2018 the fashion industry consumed more energy than both “the aviation and shipping industries combined.”
According to the United Nations, 8 to 10% of the world’s carbon emissions can be attributed to the fashion industry, Insider reported.
Whether synthetic or treated with chemicals, it can take clothing 200 years to biodegrade, and it’s as toxic as discarded tires or plastics, Yahoo! News said.
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