ALTO HOSPICIO, Chile—An eerie site awaits those driving past this northern city toward a sprawl of the Atacama Desert.

In the fall of 2022, Alto Hospicio’s mayor, Ferreira, acknowledged the unsolved problem but blamed clothing manufacturers, citing a “lack of global awareness of ethical responsibility ...

Patricio Ferreira, the mayor of Alto Hospicio, the city close to the dumps, told CBS Saturday Morning he and other officials are working to stop illegal dumping in the area.

Alto Hospicio, situated at an altitude of 500 meters, has experienced rapid growth to approximately 110,000 inhabitants. Of the many residents living in unregistered areas lacking infrastructure ...

But at least 39,000 metric tons that cannot be sold end up at clandestine dumps in the desert, such as the one near Alto Hospicio. Read more. Disrupting climate change: ...

Piles of clothes dumped in the desert in the La Pampa sector of Alto Hospicio can be seen on Nov. 11, 2022. AFP via Getty Images What a waste. A satellite image taken above Chile’s Atacama ...

Some 39,000 tons of discarded clothing have amassed in Chile’s Atacama desert, Agence France-Presse has reported — equivalent to the weight of nearly 27,000 compact cars in scrapped fabric.

Alto Hospicio’s total consumption requirements are about 300,000 liters weekly, an amount that would require 17,000 square meters of similar mesh to collect.

In the zones immediately around Alto Hospicio, fog collectors would yield an estimated average of 2.5 liters of water per square meter of mesh during the fog season, according to the study.

In a 100 sq km area surrounding Alto Hospicio, between 0.2 and five litres of fog water could be harvested per square metre each day, the team discovered. However, ...