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https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/article/2024/may/08/castoffs-to-catwalk-fashion-show-shines-light-on-vast-chile-clothes-dump-visible-from-space>
"Draped in layers of denim, Sadlin Charles walks the catwalk of sand between
piles of discarded clothes and tyres in Chile’s Atacama desert. His outfit has
been made from items found in the surrounding heaps of rubbish, which are so
vast they can be seen from space. Almost all of this waste has come from
countries thousands of miles away, including the US, China, South Korea and the
UK.
A staggering 60,000 tonnes of used clothing is shipped to Chile each year.
According to the latest UN figures, Chile is the third largest importer of
secondhand clothes in the world. Some of these clothes are resold in secondhand
markets, but at least 39,000 tonnes ends up being illegally dumped in the
Atacama desert. The desert is one of the country’s most popular tourism
destinations, famed for its otherworldly beauty and stargazing, but for those
living near the dump sites it has become a place of devastation.
“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,” says Ángela Astudillo, co-founder of Desierto Vestido, a
non-governmental organisation that aims to raise awareness about the
environmental impact of the waste. “It builds up in different areas, is
incinerated and also buried.
“The way it has affected us the most is stigmatisation, as we are portrayed as
one of the dirtiest and ugliest places in the world.”
Astudillo, 27, lives a five-minute drive from one of about 160 dumps in the
area. She sees trucks full of rubbish drive past and regularly breathes in
smoke from the fires started to burn the clothes. She has received threats for
her work documenting the problem."
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
