Chile’s Atacama Desert: Where Fast Mode Dies

Deep in Chile’s Atacama Desert, new dunes are forming—not from sand, but from last year’s unsold clothes from around the world. Stacked high on the victims of previous years’ fast fashion and unbought clothing lines, clothes are usually full of toxins and dyes and don’t biodegrade. The result: fast-fashion faux pas and an environmental catastrophe that was largely ignored — until now.

Al Jazeera estimates up to 59,000 tons of unsold clothes in the US or Europe ends up at the port of Iquique in the Alto Hospicio free zone in northern Chile every year. It was intended for resale in Latin America, but only 20,000 tons were actually made across the continent.

What is not sold in Santiago or smuggled and shipped to another country remains in the free zone. It is no one’s responsibility to clean it and no one will pay the fees required to retrieve it, Al Jazeera reports.

Unfortunately, clothes may take some time hundreds of years to decompose, if any. City landfills will not accept textiles because of the chemical products they contain, the NY Post reports. Therefore, in the end up to 39,000 tons of unsold and unwanted clothes are trucked into the world’s driest desert each year, where they literally blanket the dunes in layers and layers of discarded textiles.

Woman searches for used clothes amid tons of discarded goods in the Atacama desert, in Alto Hospicio, Iquique, Chile, on September 26, 2021. MARTIN BERNETTI / AFP / Getty Images

Franklin Zepeda founded EcoFibra to tackle this largely invisible environmental catastrophe. His company makes insulation panels using used clothes.

“I wanted to stop being a problem and start being a solution,” he told AFP of the company he created in 2018.

While the human externalities of rampant consumerism – with child labor and dire conditions in factories – are well documented, the environmental costs are under-publicized and poorly understood. However, in reality, fast fashion uses an enormous amount of water — something that goes with the rhythm 7,500 liters for one pair of jeans, a UN news report found. This is the equivalent amount of water the average person drinks over seven years, the international body said. Overall, UNCTAD estimates that the fashion industry uses about 93 billion cubic meters of water every year, enough to quench the thirst of five million people.

“When we think of industries that have harmful effects on the environment, manufacturing, energy, transportation and even food production may come to mind,” the UN news report said. “But the fashion industry is widely believed to be the second most polluting industry in the world” — just behind big oil.

The report also estimates that about half a million tons of microfiber ends up in the oceans every year in the hands of fast fashion and your washing machine. This is equivalent to 3 million barrels of oil.

As for climate change, clothing production accounts for 8 to 10% of the world’s carbon emissions more every year, more than all international aviation and ocean shipping combined, insider and the United Nations reports.

Factories also frequently dump chemicals from manufacturing into local waterways and rivers, turning them into toxins and contaminating communities downstream. This is especially bad in places like Bangladesh and Indonesia, which are known to be hubs of cheap textile manufacturing.

“We do hydrocides,” said Sunita Narain, director general Center for Science and Environment in India, about dirty practices. “We deliberately killed our river.”

Aerial view of discarded used clothing in the Atacama desert, in Alto Hospicio, Iquique, Chile, on September 26, 2021. MARTIN BERNETTI / AFP / Getty Images

In 2017, a documentary about waterway pollution caused by fast fashion found that tanneries dump toxic chromium into water supplies in Kanpur, India. The chemicals then end up in cow’s milk and agricultural products.

All those environmental costs don’t even take into account the end-of-life pollution created by clothing. Unsold clothes are usually burned, buried or transported by truck to Chile. In all of these scenarios, toxins contained in clothing are released into the air and underground waterways, Al Jazeera reports. As noted above, the colors, beads, and other accessories that make clothes trendy also usually cause environmental damage when chemicals dissolve and clothes fail to biodegrade.

Is there any solution? Unfortunately, not downstream.

The analysis shows a continued increase in consumerism. McKinsey estimates that the average consumer bought 60% more clothes in 2014 than in 2000, according to an Insider report. That is in line with the doubling of clothing production between 2004 and 2019 that the Ellen McArthur Foundation found, the news report added.

“We need a model that doesn’t compromise on ethical, social and environmental values ​​and engages customers, rather than encouraging them to buy into ever-changing trends,” said Greenpeace as part of their Detox My Fashion campaign at Greenpeace Italy.

Instead of changing our clothes and style with fast fashion desires and attitudes, experts encourage us to slow down our desire for more. Manufacturers are also encouraged to create works that are meant to last and last and to embrace truly sustainable practices. Shifts and innovations in dyeing and fiber selection can help. As consumers and producers, it is only by changing our mindsets instead of our clothes that we can make real change.

Until then, the toxic dunes in the Chilean desert will continue to grow.

Tiffany Duong is an inspirational writer, explorer and speaker. He holds degrees from UCLA and the University of Pennsylvania Carey Law School. As a contributing reporter on EcoWatch, she voices what happens in nature. Its mission is to inspire meaningful action and lasting change. Follow him on Twitter/Instagram/TikTok @tiffmakeswaves.