An increasingly large mountain of unveiled clothes of 'Fast Fashion' chains is piled up in the Chilean desert

Montones of unused clothes are being abandoned in the Chilean desert, adding to an increasingly large cemetery of old fashion brands from the Fast Fashion world.

According to a report from the France-Presse agency, the huge pile of clothing consists of garments made in China and Bangladesh that reach stores from the United States, Europe and Asia.When the garments are not bought, they are taken to the Chilean port of Iquique to be relieved to other Latin American countries.

AFP has discovered that about 59.000 tons of clothes end in the port of Chile every year.Of them, at least 39.000 tons move to landfills in the desert.

Alex Carreno, an old employee of the import section of the port of Iquique, explained to the AFP that the clothes "arrive from all over the world".Carreno adds that most of the clothes are subsequently discard.

The used clothes that are taken to the desert piles for elimination now completely cover a strip in the Atacama desert, in Alto Hospicio, Chile.

Martin Bernetti/ AFP via getty images

"The problem is that clothing is not biodegradable and has chemicals, so it is not accepted in municipal landfills," says Franklin Zepeda, founder of Ecofibra, a company that tries to take advantage of discarded clothing by manufacturing insulating panels with her.

Zepeda, whose signature uses textile waste since 2018 to create its thermal and acoustic insulators for buildings, explains to the AFP that it wants to "stop being the problem and begin to be the solution."

Fast fashion or fast fashion is affordable for consumers, but at the same time it is extremely harmful to the environment.

Blue Banana, the company that underpinned a millionaire business through Instagram, is already the first Spanish fashion brand that leads the fight against carbon emissions

On the one hand, the fashion industry represents between 8 and 10% of the world's carbon emissions, according to the UN.In 2018, it was also discovered that the fashion industry consumes more energy than aviation and maritime transport industries together.Researchers estimate that the equivalent of a clothing truck burns and sends to a landfill every second.

And the rhythm from which consumers buy clothes does not seem to have decreased in the 21st century.According to the statistics of the Ellen Mcarthur Foundation, a reflection group based in the United Kingdom and the Baleful Circular Economics Organization, the production of clothing doubled during the 15 years that range from 2004 to 2019.McKinsey also calculated that the average consumer bought 60% more clothing in 2014 than in 2000.