Clothes Cemetery . Zone of the Atacama desert, Chile, where there is a clandestine garbage dump of clothes that are bought, worn and thrown away in the United States, Europe and Asia. These textile wastes take about 200 years to disintegrate.
Summary
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- 1 Origen
- 2 Features
- 3 Environmental damage
- 4 Sources
Origen
Chile has long been a storage point for used and unsold clothing, made in China or Bangladesh and transported through Europe , Asia or the United States, for resale throughout Latin America . Being the first importer of used clothing in Latin America. For nearly 40 years, there has been a solid trade in “American clothing” in stores throughout the country, which are supplied with bundles bought through the free zone in the north of the country from the United States, Canada , Europe and Asia.
Features
Some garments still retain their label
Every year, around 59,000 tons of used and new clothing arrive in Chile, unsold, from all over the world. It is clothes bought in metropolises like Berlin or Los Angeles , before being discarded. At least 39,000 tons end up as garbage hidden in the desert in the Alto Hospicio area, in northern Chile, one of the final destinations for “second-hand” clothing or clothing from past seasons of fast fashion chains. In this area of importers and preferential taxes, merchants from the rest of the country select the garments for their stores and what is left over cannot go through customs in this region of just over 300,000 inhabitants, forming huge clothing cemeteries in the desert of attack.
On the desert landscape there are stains of all kinds of garbage, and many are from clothes, handbags and shoes. Colorful hills rise out of the desolate landscape. They are platoons that grow as some 59,000 tons per year enter through the free zone of the port of Iquique , 1,800 km from Santiago de Chile.
In the textile dumps of this Chilean desert, it is possible to stumble upon a United States flag, a pair of polished skirts, see a wall of pants with labels and even step on a collection of sweaters with Christmas motifs so popular at December parties in London or New York .
environmental damage
Underground there are more garments covered with the help of municipal trucks, in an attempt to avoid highly toxic fires due to the chemicals and synthetic fabrics that compose it. Buried or exposed clothing also releases pollutants into the air and into the groundwater layers of the desert ecosystem.
According to the United Nations , the textile industry is the second most polluting on the planet, causing 10% of carbon emissions and 20% of wastewater. For example, a pair of jeans consumes 7,500 liters of water to be produced, more than a person drinks in seven years.
The excessive and fleeting consumption of clothing, with chains capable of releasing more than 50 seasons of new products per year, has caused textile waste to grow exponentially in the world, which takes about 200 years to disintegrate. The clothing is not biodegradable and has chemical products, which is why it is not accepted in municipal landfills, according to EcoFibra, a circular economy firm, with a production plant in Alto Hospicio of panels with thermal insulation based on this disposable clothing.
Fuentes
