Fast fashion - Dumped in the desert | DW Documentary

[Music] east of chile's pacific coast a shocking site a dumping ground for used clothing tons and tons much of it comes from europe this bag definitely comes from germany this desert dumping ground tells an ugly truth about fast fashion [Music] [Music] a lucrative business for some it has economic benefits for people who work here and for investors south america has become a dumping ground [Music] why has the garment production industry gone so badly wrong and who is paying the real price of fast fashion [Music] our search for answers takes us to south america [Music] we're in the atacama desert in northern chile where some of the global fashion industries discarded clothing ends up locals are taking us to a dump site past settlements of makeshift huts we drive past piles of used tires then clothing heaps and heaps of it a vast landfill site for textiles in the middle of the desert the stench of chemical vapors hangs in the air freddy is a local man he's outraged by these mountains of discarded clothes [Music] the textiles are highly flammable a fire starts by itself and everything goes up in flames but for some families the landfill is a source of income people come here to find clothes for themselves or to sell at second-hand markets in town there's no one here at the moment because there's just been a fire [Music] a graveyard for used and unsold fast fashion manuela olivos is in charge here she picks up surplus textiles in town and transports them to the dump i go to the warehouses i ask if they have any stuff they can give me if they do i rent a truck and bring it all here a long time ago back then there was a mayor in my hometown for the first time and more and more people settled here that was about eight or even twelve years ago made manuela and her husband live in a ramshackle hut surrounded by mountains of used textiles there's no electricity or running water at one point there were 20 families living here some of them left and stopped working with old clothes recently tv crews from around the world have come to report on the clothes dumping ground manuela olivos tells them about her plight she lives off a poultry state pension the equivalent of just 115 euros a month her husband is sick they're all alone thieves know that no one will see what they're up to so they come here and rob us they've taken my rabbits my ducks and pigs even my birds the couple still have a few animals left but they live in constant fear of being robbed again no one takes pity on us i keep chickens and ducks at least and here and there i grow some plants the money they make from recycling clothes is much needed as they struggle to make ends meet rejected clothing produced in china and bangladesh and sold in the u.s and europe continues to pile up around them [Music] the town of alto auspicio is covered in a thin film of sand forty years ago there was nothing but desert here the establishment of a free trade zone kick-started the local economy and created new problems edgar ortega from the local environment office explains here in alto hospicio we are dealing with the most acute environmental problems in the whole region in the desert surrounding the town everyone does whatever they want he knows exactly who to blame for the landfill sites [Music] the used clothing business is highly lucrative for importers of second-hand textiles in ike's free trade zone it's detrimental to the wider community [Music] we head to ikike the provincial capital is sandwiched between the desert and the pacific this used to be a depressed region then the free trade zone sofri was created and a container port was built companies operating here enjoy various tax exemptions dario blanco head of the ikike free trade zone users association calls the sofari a roaring success in economic terms at least the free trade zone was a political project it meant that a lot of people from elsewhere settled here in the arid desert region it created economic advantages for people who moved to ikeke for work as well as for investors [Music] importers of discarded and unsold clothes also benefit from tax exemptions we come across american brands as well as garments that are clearly from germany dealers distinguish between three categories the worst category is clothes with stains or holes we discard them an estimated 40 of what's imported ends up thrown out it varies from container to container sometimes the contents are in good condition with others we have to throw out a lot of substandard items chile is latin america's main importer of discarded clothing importing tens of thousands of tons per year some of it comes from germany we see one store that advertises clothes from hamburg neighboring countries restrict or forbid the import of used clothes not chile which has become an international dumping ground back at the landfill freddy and i are figuring out where the clothes come from we find a pair of trousers from the dominican republic and then i find textile scraps from germany rejected clothing dumped in the atacama desert dot d e obviously stuff from germany is ending up here we also find video cassettes a german phone book and a pair of socks with a price tag in euros [Music] there's still a label on the socks in germany it says sports socks for men with cotton and elastin so brand new items are ending up here too an industry operating at the expense of the environment this vast dumping ground is one consequence according to united nations statistics clothing production has doubled since the year 2000 it's an industry that consumes vast quantities of water working conditions are notoriously bad fires in textile factories are commonplace [Music] one of the worst tragedies occurred in bangladesh in 2013. the rana plaza garment factory collapse claimed over 1 100 lives [Music] a wake-up call for the fashion industry but according to brazilian activist fernanda simon nothing much has changed the collapse of rana plaza showed how non-transparent the major brand's production was many did not even know their manufacturing was done [Music] fernanda simon doesn't see any shift in the way big brands do business systems wow the current system encourages companies to produce clothes faster and faster and usually end up shipped overseas where they're sorted through by people in need in alto auspicio manuela olivos runs things i get money from people who come here looking for clothes either for themselves or to sell that's my livelihood [Applause] most are refugees from venezuela [Music] i'm looking for something to wear i lost all my clothes fleeing to chile the venezuelan refugees are usually penniless we see lots of them here crossing the desert in the daytime the sun beats down and at night it's bitterly cold here on the border to bolivia refugees have erected makeshift huts in the last two years hundreds of venezuelans have been arriving here every day a ditch and armed border patrol guards are no deterrents the desert border is nearly impossible to control we want to get to the coast it's a bit makeshift come in the refugees make do driven by hope of a better life in chile this is where we cook i hope i can find work it's impossible in venezuela we have nothing to eat there but here i can earn money and support my family back home [Music] we see many families with children they've left everything behind pinning their hopes on a new home in chile sometimes locals give them something to eat [Music] more often they're met with hostility a lot of people just shut the door in our faces they won't give us anything to eat further on we see a family by the side of the road they're clearly exhausted despite the scorching midday sun they want to keep going until they reach ikike some 200 kilometers away a long trip through the desert with a two-year-old and a five-month-old baby it's very hard a sign warns of pit bulls [Music] some locals offered us water that was contaminated with urine why would you do [Music] isn't giving them the welcome they'd hoped for they're treated like pariahs in ikike refugees live in abject conditions many have settled near the clothing dump where the clothes they find they wear my two children and i fled through the desert we had to leave behind the suitcase with our clothes or we it was so cold in the andes at night i cuddled with the children to keep warming [Music] in the second hand market in alto hospicio the venezuelan refugees can buy t-shirts jeans and sweaters or sell used clothes themselves anything that's halfway decent is sold [Music] for poor people especially this is a place to buy and sell cheap clothes t-shirts can be as cheap as 10 euro cents anyone without a job buys their clothes here these clothes are europe's garbage what arrives in chile is officially clothing but for countries in europe it's garbage unfortunately chilean law makes this possible [Music] two thousand kilometers away in sao paulo brazil this is the heart of the south american textiles industry the bombhero district is a hub for clothes stores and textile factories it's also home to many who live off the industry's leftovers every day at five in the afternoon pedro da silva picks up whatever has been thrown away it's a lot bags and bags of surplus textiles [Music] this is how much is left over from production every day it's all surplus but we can use it it's in good condition and can all be recycled about one-fifth of the fabrics used in production ends up in the trash pedro gets annoyed when fabrics are thrown out along with normal household garbage then the bags are worthless textiles that have been in a bag with trash they get dirty [Music] instead of filling one bag with garbage and fabric scraps they could use two bags and separate the waste it's not hard [Music] in sao paulo 63 tons of fabric scraps are thrown away every day a growing number of waste collectors have started specializing in clothing waste laura is one of them for her it was a way out the work helped her beat a crack addiction today she's clean and belongs to a fabric recycling network versus factories could join forces and transport their fabric waste to the suburbs where lots of small sewing shops could really use it but they refused to it's known [Music] instead many former homeless people like laura collect the fabric scraps and bring them to maria alina hilsenbeck's storeroom the factory's leftovers are piled up to the ceiling three rooms full of boxes and sacks [Music] is more coming sure all the time [Music] maria olena runs a charity project she and her volunteer seamstresses turn the scrap material into rucksacks it all started a few years ago when i realized how many backpacks i own i was always buying new ones and throwing them out that's when i had the idea to manufacture backpacks from fabric scraps they produced 250 rucksacks a month from fabric that would otherwise end up in the trash i started paying the garbage collectors money for the scraps i explained that i need clean they've been fabrics me tons of leftovers ever since maria manufactures and markets belt bags hats and backpacks without any help from the government she wants her project to show that sustainability can be profitable that there is an alternative to disposable fast fashion a person has nothing to do with luxury clothing it's about what's on the inside sustainability is key for the fabrics bank in another part of sao paulo a new delivery has just arrived leftovers from a factory anyone who drops off waste fabric can exchange it for other fabric first it gets weighed by founder lou bueno everyone can drop off fabric if you give us 10 kilos you get 7 kilos in return the fabric bank keeps 30 and uses it to make new products in such a position initiatives like ours are good but they're only small steps they won't make the fashion industry sustainable a lot more needs to change true sustainability would have to start with cotton brazil is one of the largest producers worldwide but most cotton grown here is genetically modified and heavily treated with pesticides that's just not sustainable the cotton is grown in monocultures and wouldn't be possible without agrotoxins activist fernanda simon says the industry needs a reboot in terms we need to aim for a circular economy when it comes to closed production and think about how used clothing can be recycled on an industrial scale for the fashion industry to become more sustainable they need to move away from a throwaway society [Music] a concept that hasn't made its way to ikike back in chile here no one has been able to tackle the garbage problem several illegal garbage dumps are littered about the atacama desert this one is the size of 25 soccer fields at night people dump anything they want to get rid of saving the fees charged by the official garbage dump down the road for some 25 men the dump is home and their workplace they sort anything that can be recycled this is our life i used to work at another landfill site we do a good job and we don't bother anyway [Music] one problem is that the discarded clothes are mostly synthetic so they take years to biodegrade incinerating them releases chemicals that end up contaminating the groundwater fast fashion is an environmental nightmare we are counting on chile's ministry of the environment to develop a new strategy to make it compulsory for importers to dispose of their clothing waste responsibly slowly the companies operating in the free trade zone are realising it's time for a rethink if only to improve their image what i can say is that the clothing import companies want to help things improve they want to address the negative impact of their business model the situation is definitely going to change few deny that reform is long overdue it's up to fashion companies politicians and consumers to change practices policies and behaviour [Music] otherwise dumps like these will continue to grow [Music] [Music] [Music] 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Channel: DW Documentary

Views: 494,440

Keywords: Documentary, Documentaries, documentaries, DW documentary, full documentary, DW, documentary 2022, Chile, Atacama Desert, Zofri, free trade zone, Iquique free trade zone, over-production, fast fashion, recycling, refugees

Id: QicSkPNx4Ho

Length: 28min 26sec (1706 seconds)

Published: Tue May 31 2022