Once a vast, uninterrupted plateau, Chile’s Atacama Desert is now a technicolor testament to overconsumption.

A cursor hovering over the checkout of an Amazon cart; an unassuming paper bag carrying the new, trendiest cut of jeans from Forever 21; a Gmail notification that indicates a menagerie of Shein clothing has been shipped. These testaments to overconsumption in daily life may produce a quick, subtle pang of guilt. But, ultimately, this engagement with the world of fast fashion tends to be “out of sight, out of mind.” After all, once the clothing is donated or discarded most people assume it will end up in a landfill, neatly tucked away, never to be seen again. With no visual proof of the waste guilt subsides, and the cycle of overconsumption repeats. 

The cyclical and rampant nature of overconsumption, however, has real, tangible implications — implications that can be seen and felt by citizens of Iquique, a Northern Chilean city in the Atacama Desert. An average of 39,000 tons of fast fashion waste are dumped in Iquique per year, in addition to the approximately 60,000 tons of clothing imported into Chile annually. Roughly 40,000 square miles, the Atacama desert was once a pristine yet arid plateau; a prime sight for stargazing under a clear, open sky. The desert landscape, covered in salt flats, valleys and rocky topography, averages about 40,000 visitors per year but has since been contaminated. 

The clothing pile has grown to such an extent that it can be seen from space using satellite technology. But, before the magnitude of clothing became noticeable from an extraterrestrial viewpoint, people residing in Alto Hospicio, a municipality next to Iquique, watched as the unbridled clothing dumping grew out of hand. Clothes manufactured in China and Bangladesh that fail to sell in U.S. stores are brought in through the port of Iquique and subsequently dumped into the Atacama. The dumping site raised concerns among citizens of Alto Hospicio as early as 2012, but their unease was ignored.

Disheartened, the people of Alto Hospicio claimed to have experienced negligence by local and national government officials firsthand. For years, the waste grew despite continual pleas for action. Although in 2021 the former Minister for the Environment of Chile, Javier Naranjo Solano, expressed his worries about the vast quantities of textiles being imported into Chile and proposed remediation, some Chilean environmental engineers and scientists feared that the the laws he proposed, entangled with bureaucratic processes,  would be far too slow-moving considering the urgent, rapid growth of the clothing pile. Other citizens, however, have faith that Chile’s newly appointed Minister for the Environment, Maisa Rojas, will be able to translate eco-anxiety into concrete action.

Even under new leadership, however, the already massive pile of clothing is a nearly indestructible hazard. Much of the poor-quality fast fashion clothing dumped in Atacama is polyester, a material made out of the non-renewable resource petroleum. The open-air clothing pile secretes pollutants into the air; they seep into the ground. Thus, petroleum and other harmful materials can contaminate any remaining groundwater in aquifers under the desert. As potent as plastic and as enduring as steel, the clothing dumped in Atacama will take 200 years to biograde.

The Atacama Desert is often considered the driest climate on the planet, with annual rainfall averaging at only .03 inches. Atacama’s arid climate dangerously aids the spread of intentionally ignited fires. In order to curtail the amount of clothing discarded, fires are illegally and mysteriously started. These fires only serve as a further pollutant on top of the fabric already decomposing in the hot, arid environment. 

Although many merchants reside in Iquique,  one of South America’s largest duty free ports, many in the municipality of Alto Hospicio live in poverty — 25% of residents in Alto Hospicio specifically live in extreme poverty and, with many having poor access to quality housing. Although many residents travel to the Atacama fashion graveyard to salvage and sell discarded clothing, their proximity to the dump site has sinister implications: the negligence of the Atacama fashion desert and subsequent pollution acutely harms low-income communities in Northern Chile. Fast fashion waste, both burnt and decomposing, creates fumes that are linked to respiratory diseases, chronic illnesses, reproductive issues and even types of cancer.

Although there are efforts to repurpose the dumped clothing, with companies such as Ecofibra Chile taking the fabric and transforming it into thermal insulation panels, only one method of curtailing fast-fashion waste can truly have an impact: curbing our own overconsumption. Instead of purchasing that cost-effective Amazon fashion find, or the trendy new jeans from Forever 21, look into your own closet. Rediscover a dress that has been tucked away in the depths of your dresser. Organize a clothes swap with friends. Borrow your Aunt’s blouse or your Grandfather’s wool sweater. Rather than falling victim to trend cycles, explore what has been cherished, saved and passed down.

Carina Cole is a Media Studies student with a Correlate in Creative Writing at Vassar College. She is an avid journalist and occasional flash fiction writer. Her passion for writing overlaps with environmentalism, feminism, social justice, and a desire to travel beyond the United States. When she’s not writing, you can find her meticulously curating playlists or picking up a paintbrush.