- Title: Discarded clothes dumped in the Atacama desert get a second life
- Date: 19th April 2024
- Summary: CONCEPCION, CHILE (APRIL 18, 2024) (REUTERS) (SOUNDBITE) (Spanish) RUNWAY FASHION DESIGN DIRECTOR AND INNOVA GLOBAL MANAGER, JOHANA FERNANDEZ ORMENO, SAYING: "We worked with them (eds note: refers to artisans and designers) so that, in addition to creating a collaborative fashion collection, it would be sustainable and made by rescuing these garments. We as a team took them to the desert to different micro-dumps so that they could rescue them.”
- Embargoed: 3rd May 2024 16:45
- Keywords: Atacama desert Chile Earth Day environment fashion fast fashion
- Location: VARIOUS LOCATIONS, CHILE
- City: VARIOUS LOCATIONS, CHILE
- Country: Chile
- Topics: Environment,South America / Central America
- Reuters ID: LVA009651119042024RP1
- Aspect Ratio: 16:9
- Story Text:Several Chilean organisations are trying to give a new life to discarded clothing in the Atacama Desert through projects that aim to give the planet a break.
In projects like the one managed by the Adventist Development and Relief Agency (ADRA) in Santiago, clothes rescued from the desert are transformed into tote bags decorated by some of the 3,700 vulnerable children and adolescents assisted by the humanitarian agency.
ADRA's member Veronica Korsun told Reuters on Wednesday (April 17) that these tote bags are then given away by the children.
Meanwhile, in Iquique, garments rescued by the Innova Global and Runway Fashion Design (RFD) associations are turned into fashion pieces that seek to highlight that sustainability can go hand in hand with elegance in the RFD Tarapaca Circular y Sustainable project.
In addition to highlighting sustainability, the initiative aims to link local designers and artisans to professionalize and internationalize their work. Eleven pairs of designers and artisans participated in the project and created 110 collaborative outfits during the project, RFD website reports.
In 2022, Chile was the world’s third-largest importer of second-hand and unsold clothes, originating principally from the United States, China, and the Republic of Korea, according to the Observatory of Economic Complexity website. A large share of these clothes end up in the Atacama desert.
(Production: Rodrigo Gutierrez, Gloria Lopez) - Copyright Holder: REUTERS
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