![]() ![]() The same report said that clothing and footwear manufacturing contributes eight percent of global greenhouse gases, and that "every second, an amount of textiles equivalent to a garbage truck is buried or burnt." To make a single pair of jeans requires 7,500 liters (2,000 gallons) of water. "I wanted to stop being the problem and start being the solution," he told AFP about the firm he created in 2018.Īccording to a 2019 UN report, global clothing production doubled between 20, and the industry is "responsible for 20 percent of total water waste on a global level." ![]() "The problem is that the clothing is not biodegradable and has chemical products, so it is not accepted in the municipal landfills," said Franklin Zepeda, the founder of EcoFibra, a company that makes insulation panels using discarded clothing. "What is not sold to Santiago nor sent to other countries stays in the free zone" as no one pays the necessary tariffs to take it away. "This clothing arrives from all over the world," Alex Carreno, a former employee in the port's import area, told AFP. But at least 39,000 tons that cannot be sold end up in rubbish dumps in the desert. Some 59,000 tons of clothing arrive each year at the Iquique port in the Alto Hospicio free zone in northern Chile.Ĭlothing merchants from the capital Santiago, 1,800 kilometers to the south, buy some, while much is smuggled out to other Latin American countries. The social impact of rampant consumerism in the clothing industry - such as child labor in factories or derisory wages - is well-known, but the disastrous effect on the environment is less publicized.Ĭhile has long been a hub of secondhand and unsold clothing, made in Bangladesh and passing through Europe, Asia or the US before arriving in Chile, where it is resold around Latin America. ![]() Photo: AFPĪ mountain of discarded clothing including Christmas sweaters and ski boots cuts a strange sight in Chile's Atacama, the driest desert in the world, which is increasingly suffering from pollution created by fast fashion. Shoppers purchase secondhand clothes in a store in Singapore on January 16. ![]()
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