Chile's fashion wasteland

Endless mounds of textiles cast off by Asian, European and US fashion markets populate Chile's Atacama - the world's driest desert - contaminating the landscape beneath.

A global magnet for secondhand garments and retailers' written-off stock, Chile welcomes clothing merchants who screen arriving consignments and extract what's saleable. In excess of 39,000 tonnes of clothing a year with no commercial value is then abandoned in the desert.

Due to their synthetic makeup or chemical treatment, many fabrics are expected to require 200 years to degrade and will leave behind toxic residues.

Regional Secretary of the Environment Ministry, Moyra Rojas illustrates further issues with their presence.

Moyra Rojas: "These small scale rubbish dumps generate some fire incidents, which obviously produce air pollution. And some are also located near populated areas."

Mindful of the ecological catastrophe that fast fashion waste is wreaking on the region, Franklin Zepeda sought out a solution, founding EcoFibra to put the waste to good use.

Franklin Zepeda: "The waste is what used to go to the desert rubbish dump and now we are using it as a raw material to make our thermal insulation panels."

A 2019 UN report paints a stark picture. Having doubled in scale between 2000 and 2014, clothing manufacturing accounts for a fifth of global water waste and 8 percent of greenhouse emissions.

Yet our thirst for on trend fashion shows no sign of abating. While one company, Ecocitex, is spinning recycled yarn for new cloth from cast-off fashions, its CEO, Rosario Hevia, considers education the key to the future.

Rosario Hevia: "The main solution to eliminating textile waste in Chile is to educate people about reducing their consumption of unnecessary textiles, and to take charge of extending the lifespan of it - the clothing."

Back in the Atacama's blistering heat, the most unfortunate in society and migrants from Venezuela rummage through the discarded apparel to dress themselves.

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