Mountains of discarded clothing turn chile’s atacama desert into a fashion graveyard

In Chile’s pristine Atacama Desert—one of Earth’s driest places where scientists test Mars missions—towering mountains of discarded clothing now dominate the landscape. Since 2001, over 100,000 tons of fast fashion waste have accumulated in this unlikely dumping ground, creating what activists call the “great fashion garbage patch.”

This desert graveyard reveals the dark side of our global clothing addiction. The fashion industry now produces 170 billion garments annually, with roughly half thrown away within a year. This makes fashion the world’s third-most-polluting industry after energy and food, generating up to 10% of global greenhouse gas emissions and consuming massive amounts of water.

The problem exploded after 2005 when international trade agreements expired, flooding markets with cheap clothing from countries like China and Bangladesh. Ultra-fast fashion brands like Shein can now design, manufacture, and ship new garments in just days, releasing up to 10,000 new items daily. Meanwhile, the average fast-fashion jeans are worn only seven times before being discarded.

The environmental toll spans the entire lifecycle: cotton production requires 500 gallons of water for a single outfit and heavy pesticide use, while synthetic fabrics made from petroleum shed plastic microfibers into waterways. Toxic dyes pollute rivers worldwide, with Indonesia’s Citarum River becoming one of the most contaminated on Earth. Even when donated, most clothing ends up burned or in landfills, where it releases methane and leaches chemicals. While some brands promote sustainability initiatives and recycling programs, experts warn that without fundamental changes to the industry’s breakneck speed and overproduction, these efforts remain largely cosmetic.