Karla Avil\u00e9s describes how the smell of burning plastic drifts all the way to her home. That odor comes from the Atacama Desert\u2019s textile landfill in Chile, where clothes and other waste are set ablaze. She lives just a seven-minute walk from one of several dumpsites in Alto Hospicio, a commune near Iquique.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
At least 124,000 tons of clothing enter the region\u2019s port each year\u2014as recorded in 2022\u2014yet the city lacks adequate waste-disposal infrastructure. More importantly, this textile dumping has been going on for 20 to 30 years\u2014virtually since Karla was born\u2014and only now is a recycling plant being installed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cBut that doesn\u2019t stop junk clothes from continuing to flood our territory\u2014clothes that won\u2019t sell, that are torn,\u201d Karla explains. \u201cAt least now people are aware: they see those trucks dumping trash and say, \u2018Hey, they\u2019re burning clothes.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In 2022, satellite images revealed mounds of discarded textiles, some standing five to six meters high. That June, one of the region\u2019s largest waste fires broke out. Although the landscape looks different now, the problem hasn\u2019t gone away.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Over the past 20 years, clothing consumption in Chile has skyrocketed by 233%, jumping from an average of 15 garments per person in 2007 to 50 in 2021\u2014comparable to the U.S. (53 items) and higher than the U.K. (33 items), according to the 2025 \u201cHacia Basura Cero en los Textiles<\/em><\/a>\u201d (Toward Zero Textiles Waste) report from Fundaci\u00f3n Reverdesierto<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n At the same time, the Oxford Economics report Socioeconomic Impact of Second-Hand Clothes<\/a><\/em> found that since 2002\u2014and at least until 2017\u2014we\u2019ve been wearing new clothing 36% less than before.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The rise in consumption and disposal dates back to the 2000s, when Inditex<\/strong> kicked its sales machine into high gear: Zara was opening up to three new stores a day<\/strong> and was using real-time supply-chain tracking technology. The term fast fashion was coined in 1989 by New York Times journalist Anne Marie Schiro, describing Zara\u2019s operation for the first time outside Europe<\/a>. A Zara spokesperson revealed it took just fifteen days to transform a collection idea into a store display.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cA fashion company used to make four collections a year\u2014one per season. Zara broke that cycle by creating a model where new items hit stores in just three weeks after conception,\u201d says Andreas Hartmann<\/a>, research professor at the Business School in the Department of International Business and coordinator of the Organizational Strategy Research Group at Tecnol\u00f3gico de Monterrey.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Today, fast fashion<\/strong> is defined by synthetic fibers used for cost-efficiency, luxury design knock-offs, cheap outsourced labor in East Asia, and accelerated product cycles.<\/p>\n\n\n\n This spawned ultra fast fashion, which can release as many as 10,000 new styles per day, driven by massive online sales and aggressive social media strategies. \u201cIn the industry, you hear that money matters more than talent or labor rights\u2014that\u2019s the system talking,\u201d reflects Mar\u00eda Pilar Uribe Silva<\/a>, a journalist specializing in sustainable fashion. \u201cThe big issue today is overproduction of clothing born out of this relentless pace and the pressure for something new every day.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n The number of garments produced annually has doubled since 2000, according to the 2018 report<\/a> by the international consultancy McKinsey. Besides buying more and more, users discard the pieces they buy at a cheap price faster, throwing them away after at least seven or eight uses. However, the clothing that ends up in landfills, whether discarded by users or by companies that didn\u2019t sell the surplus, goes through other processes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n General textile waste disposal is divided into three main groups: reusable clothing for the secondhand market, recyclable material for industrial uses, and waste that is incinerated. The third group is the largest, since the infrastructure for collection, sorting, and processing of used textiles is underdeveloped even in advanced economies, unlike other sectors such as construction, where the cement industry has resources for waste processing and recycling.<\/p>\n\n\n\n This lack causes the equivalent of a truckload of clothes to end up in the trash every second, as less than 1% of textiles are recycled, according to the Ellen MacArthur Foundation and the UK Parliament. On the other hand, the clothes that are rescued do get a second life.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The secondhand industry in the European Union was valued at 16 billion euros in 2021 and is expected to nearly double by 2025, according to Statista.Secondhand clothing: the growing market<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
Karla Avil\u00e9s in Iquique, together with Basti\u00e1n Barr\u00eda and \u00c1ngela Astudillo, organized themselves and formed the NGO Desierto Vestido<\/a>. In Atacama, they collected garments in perfect condition, identified, sorted, and after sanitizing them, put them up for \u201csymbolic sale.\u201d
Levi\u2019s pants, Calvin Klein, Nike shorts, Adidas, Zara, and more were offered to the public for zero pesos, with consumers only having to pay for shipping. Their campaign was a success since in less than five hours all the garments were gone.
\u201cBeyond the garment, we believe that taking these pieces to different parts of the world represents a more symbolic value associated with identity. People aren\u2019t just buying a garment, but they\u2019re taking a story with them, raising awareness about a problem happening here,\u201d Basti\u00e1n said in an interview.
The secondhand industry considerably reduces the ecological footprint of garments<\/strong><\/a>, as reused textiles require only 0.01% of the water and save about three kilograms of carbon dioxide per garment compared to new clothing production, according to the Oxford Economics report.
Secondhand platform companies seem to be a partial solution that also involves consumers who do not have as much influence over the production chain, Hartmann comments.
The academic and the professors from the marketing and business intelligence department at EGADE Business School, Mar\u00eda Lucila Osorio<\/a> and Diana Kolbe<\/a>, made the report Secondhand Platforms<\/a><\/em>, where they explore factors that affect their adoption.
In other countries, like the UK, 67% of millennials buy secondhand clothing, and Generation Z has two secondhand items in their closet for every five items, according to the retailer in that sector,<\/a> Thred-Up. The platform study in Mexico showed that 67% also said they had bought some secondhand fashion product in the last year, representing approximately 40% of their purchases.
Both new and used clothing seem valuable to the consulted buyers in the sample, since they feel similar satisfaction with both. The three main reasons they choose to buy used clothing are: to save money, to feel they are making a good investment, and to take care of the planet. Also, they like having access to different or more exclusive garments.
\u201cThe customer also enjoys the game of searching for a hidden treasure, finding something very special in that shopping experience, so that is part of the appeal,\u201d says Hartmann.
Secondhand clothing consumers said their main purchasing channel was physical locations such as markets, flea markets, or temporary bazaars (78%). Online, Facebook and Instagram dominate (39%), while 15% said they used specialized platforms such as Gotrendier, Gloset, Vopero, Troquer, The Real Real, Portelo, and Verde Permuta.<\/p>\n\n\n\nTroquer, a pioneering Mexican platform<\/h2>\n\n\n\n