Thousands of Tons Dumped Each Year
More than 65,000 tons of used clothing, shipped from Asia, Europe, and the U.S., arrive each year in Iquique, where they are meant to be resold around Latin America. The port is what’s called the Inquique “free zone,” one of several areas in Chile meant to encourage international trade, where there are no tariffs, taxes, or other customs-related fees.
As a result, each year about 35,000 tons of clothing, which can’t be resold, stay in the “free zone,” since no one wants to pay the tariffs required to move them back out of the area. Landfills refuse to take the synthetic fibers that make up the bulk of the clothing, EcoFibra founder Franklin Zepeda told AFP, so the desert has become the dumping ground.
