A mountain of discarded clothing and other rubbish is found in the Atacama Desert in northern Chile. (Image: Getty)
Satellite imagery has revealed that a pile of clothes created by the fast fashion industry—which produces an estimated 92 million tonnes of waste a year—has created a mountain of rubbish in the Atacama Desert of northern so large that it is visible from space.
Included in the mountain are items such as ski boots and unwanted Christmas jumpers.
“The satellite image that we ordered of the clothes pile in Chile’s really puts things into perspective,” SkyFi wrote in .
“The size of the pile and the it’s causing are visible from space, making it clear that there is a need for change in the fashion industry.”
The clothes are mostly manufactured in or Bangladesh and are then sent to stores in the US, Europe and Asia, reported in 2021. Those that fail to sell are then dumped in the Atacama.
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The mountain of disregarded clothing is still growing by 39,000 tons a year. (Image: Getty)
The site added that, as of that year, it was estimated that around 60,000 tons of clothes arrive in the region each year through the nearby port of Iquique, in the Alto Hospicio free zone in northern Chile. According to recent , Chile is the third largest importer of secondhand clothes in the world.
Some clothes are bought by clothing merchants from the capital, – 1,100 miles south of the mountain – while others are taken by clothing smugglers to resell in other parts of Latin America.
Even so, however, the mountain of disregarded clothing is still growing by 39,000 tons a year.
Adding to the problem is the fact that the clothing cannot be sent to municipal landfills because it is non-biodegradable and contains chemical products, Franklin Zepeda, the founder of EcoFibre, a company that turns some clothes into insulation panels, told the AFP.
There are, however, activists and designers who organise events to raise awareness of the devastation to the land and local people. Earlier this year, model Sadlin Charles walked a catwalk among the piles of discarded clothes and other rubbish, wearing an outfit made from items from the surrounding piles of rubbish.
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Plans for a 2025 fashion show event are already underway. (Image: Jam Press/SkyFi)
“This place is being used as a global sacrifice zone where waste from different parts of the world arrives and ends up around the municipality of Alto Hospicio,” said Ángela Astudillo, co-founder of Desierto Vestido, a non-governmental organisation that aims to raise awareness about the environmental impact of the waste, according to .
“It builds up in different areas, is incinerated and also buried.”
Astudillo, 27, lives a five-minute drive from one of about 160 dumps in the area. She regularly sees trucks full of rubbish drive past and breathes in smoke from the fires started to burn the clothes. According to The Guardian, she has received threats for her work documenting the problem.
“It’s sad because this has been happening for a long time and the people who live here can’t do anything because it puts us in danger. The only thing we can do is denounce what is happening, and stand idly by,” she added.
Plans for a 2025 event are already underway.