Bird's eye photo of a huge dump filled with thrown away clothes

This garment junkyard in Chile spans roughly 1.2 square miles. That’s about the size of 580 football fields. An estimated 59,000 tons of unwanted clothing are exported to Chile each year.

Antonio Cossio/picture alliance via Getty Images

STANDARDS

Common Core: RH.6-8.1, RH.6-8.4, RH.6-8.7, WHST.6-8.4, RI.6-8.1, RI.6-8.4, RI.6-8.7, W.6-8.4

NCSS: Culture • People, Places, and Environments • Production, Distribution, and Consumption • Global Connections

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GEOGRAPHY

Fashion Wasteland

A desert in Chile has become a dumping ground for trendy, cheaply made clothing.

World map highlighting the Atacama Desert in Chile

Jim McMahon/Mapman®

Among the sand dunes and rocky landscapes of the Atacama Desert in Chile lies a mountain. But this is no natural mountain. It’s a towering heap of sweaters, jackets, and other discarded clothes—and it’s growing at an alarming rate.

Over the past 15 years, the Atacama Desert has become a dumping ground for the world’s fast fashion: trendy clothes that are produced quickly and sold at low prices. Shoppers fill their closets with fast fashion, then toss items as soon as they go out of style. Manufacturers also overproduce garments, discarding what isn’t bought without losing too much cash.

All that trashed clothing has to go somewhere. The United States and other wealthy nations export millions of tons of it overseas, including to Chile. What can’t be resold there ends up in landfills and trash heaps. Since most fast fashion is made from materials that don’t break down naturally, the piles only grow over time.  

Image of various spools of string

Courtesy Ecocitex

A company in Chile called Ecocitex turns old clothing into yarn.

That’s why people in Chile are tackling the problem head-on. One company is turning the textiles into insulation for homes. Another recycles unwanted fabrics into yarn. 

But the crisis can’t be solved by one nation alone, experts point out. Everyone needs to step up, they say, including people in the U.S. How? Buy fewer new clothes. And when you do need to restock your closet, shop secondhand or trade items with a friend.

Question: How can human actions in one part of the world affect people in other places?

Image of display window for clothing store. Text, "What You Can Do"
Geography
Human Environment Interactions

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