This story was originally published byGrist.
This story was produced by Grist and co-published withEl Pais.
A Spanish-language versioncan be read here.
An aerial view of piles of used clothing.Photo: Antonio Cossio (AP)
Reporting was supported by theJoan Konner Program in the Journalism of Ideas.
They headed toward a mountain of sand known as El Paso de la Mula.
Astudillo stopped the car and texted the academics behind her.
It looks like its on fire.
Hopefully, its not there.
She then dialed them directly and asked, Do you still want to go?
Pino, director ofSantiagos Fashion System Observatoryat Universidad Diego Portales, had planned this trip for months.
Astudillo had volunteered to be their guide.
Smoke obscured everything, hanging like an opaque black curtain.
Municipal authorities turned the group away, forbidding them to stay on the premises.
There, the students surveyed the inferno.
It was like a war, Pino said.
She felt waves of heat.
Black smoke unspooled from the burning clothes.
The air was dense and hard to breathe.
Smoke coated the back of their throats and clogged their nostrils with the acrid smell of melting plastic.
They covered their faces, trying not to breathe it in.
Store tags still dangled from many of her findings.
The clothes hadcome to the Atacamafrom Europe, the United States, Korea, and Japan.
She plucked out a rhinestone-encrusted platform stiletto in perfect condition.
She crouched to search for its match, but the wind was getting stronger.
If it shifted, the team realized, theyd be trapped in the spreading fire.
For 14 years, no rain has fallen in Alto Hospicio or the surrounding Atacama Desert region.
But the mountain of clothes depicted by that 2021 drone photo is utterly gone.
The port of Iquique is an established tax-free zone, incentivizing this booming industry of castaway textiles.
When you buy, you are buying with your eyes closed, one former merchant said.
Sometimes 80 percent of the garments in a bale are usable.
Sometimes the opposite is true.
Because bales are so cheap, however, most merchants need only sell 40 percent to turn a profit.
Chilean federal law states its illegal to dispose of textiles.
In 2001, Manuela Medina*, a former gardener, saw an opportunity in Iquiques growing textile abundance.
Here, Medina sold her piles to merchants and others for $10 each.
Soon, importers and secondhand merchants began to deliver surplus used clothes directly to Medina.
Fed by daily truck deliveries, and then by multiple daily tractor trailer load deliveries, Medinas pile grew.
For her submission of evidence, she asked the tribunal to join her in touring the mound of clothing.
Shed grown up in northern Chile, a pencil thin country bordered by the Pacific Ocean.
Her father is from Alto Hospicio and her mother is from Iquique.
In November 2020, he and others conducted a survey to ascertain local attitudes regarding the clothing waste.
Thats when she realized the dump situation had worsened.
Countries like Chile, Haiti, and Uganda became depositories for fast fashion discards.
It wont go away nicely, and were not stopping today.
Days later, toxic air still clung to the area.
She warned, You cant be outside for long.
Lacking a certifiable timestamp, the films were inadmissible.
He alluded to discussions he had with European businessmen to explore initiatives related to recycling.
But on the day of the hearing, none of them arrived.
At the end of the day, in practice, I am alone in this action, she said.
Chiles government recently voted to adopt recycling measures that make certain producers accountable for their waste.
In parallel, the Ministry of the Environment is developing a circular economy strategy for textile waste.
Unlike the REP, the agency crafts public policy for the public and private sectors to prevent overproduction.
It is also tabulating the results of a preliminary survey on consumer clothes-buying habits.
The details of this circular economy strategy is expected to be published in March this year.
Oh, because you are from Iquique?
she recalled him asking her.
Not only because I am from Iquique, she replied, but because we all wear clothes.
It was terrible, she said, weeping as she recalled her first visit.
The experience galvanized her.
As part of the projects efforts, she and 20 other members host workshops and conversations.
They upcycle castaway materials into new garments and craft household items.
She developed rashes from rummaging among the fabrics.
Since then, Gajardos conviction to never design clothes from virgin materials has deepened.
Other entrepreneurs have attempted to turn the clothes problem into revenue, but have faced a series of setbacks.
(Its name is an acronym meaning Proceso Circular en Textil in Spanish).
A Czech company calledRETEXhas been attempting to bring its fabric-macerating technology to Alto Hospicio.
Blanco says that in exchange for securing a contract with Chile, the company promised to hire local workers.
But, Blanco admitted, negotiations like these have fallen through in the past.
Collectively, they hope RETEX will succeed in doing what Zepedas company failed to do: turn a profit.
As of this writing, no importers are involved.
Meanwhile, every day, container ships continue to offload more cargo.
Our land has been sacrificed, he said.
Pino agrees that the fashion industry and its consumers are culpable.
Ecocitex operates in a manner contrary to the countrys organized and informal secondhand clothes markets.
She wanted to know: Did factory-processed, used clothing produce fewer emissions than the original clothing manufacturing process?
(Medina has started a new business storing tires.)
In recent years, Zepeda has earned his living as an employee of Chiles largest retailer, CENCOSUD.
As for Ecocitex, in June, the business caught fire and the building was destroyed.
The cause is still under investigation.
Undeterred, Hevia has launched acampaignto rebuild.
Meanwhile, she is raising funds by selling blankets made from recycled fibers to a mining company.
All that remained was a smattering of ashes and the tread marks of bulldozers.
Here and there, across Medinas unofficial backyard, small piles of garments peeked out of the sand dunes.
But according to municipal officials, dumping and burning continues.
She told Grist in late December that this is an everyday thing.
You go out to buy bread and you smell the burning smell.
You smell the materials that make up the clothes: oil and plastic.
She also confirmed the abandoning of clothes continues: They throw it away, they burn it immediately.
Hes haunted by what his drone footage made visible.
How the desert of sand starts to turn into a desert of clothes, he said.
It has no limit; there is no closure …
Clothes begin to appear on the ground until the horizon is completely covered.
In Iquique, he often glances up toward the high plateau of Alto Hospicio.
That cloud of smoke lets you know …
It makes [the issue] visible on a day-to-day basis.
Over the past 20 years, Astudillos father has experimented with growing trees in the infertile, saline soils.
Many of his efforts failed until he began using certain fabrics to mulch his trees.
This improves the quality of the soil, enabling it to retain moisture.
Astudillo filled the hole, amending the desert sand with compost and garden soil.
For me its like a Band-Aid for a wound that is so big in that place, she said.
Then she tucked in cardinal flowers a native plant whose petals resemble shooting flames.
This article originally appeared inGristathttps://grist.org/international/burn-after-wearing-fashion-waste-chile/.
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