East of Chile（智利）'s Pacific（太平洋） Coast, a shocking sight. A dumping ground for used clothing. Tons（吨） and tons（吨）. Much of it comes from Europe. This bag definitely comes from Germany. This desert dumping（倾卸） ground tells an ugly truth about fast fashion.

  We're producing more clothing and throwing it away faster. A lucrative（有利的） business for some. It has economic benefits for people who work here and for investors（ 投资者）. South America has become a dumping ground. What you throw away is what we wear. Why has the garment production industry gone so badly wrong?

  And who is paying the real price of fast fashion? Our search for answers takes us to South America. We're in the Atacama Desert in northern Chile, where some of the global fashion industry's discarded（丢弃） clothing ends up. Locals are taking us to a dump site, past settlements（解决） of makeshift（将就） hunts（打猎）. We drive past piles（堆叠） of used tires, then clothing. Heaps and heaps of it.

  A vast（巨大的） landfill site for textiles（纺织品） in the middle of the desert. The stench（恶臭） of chemical vapors（蒸汽） hangs in the air. Freddie is a local man. He's outraged by these mountains of discarded clothes. Now in the summer there are a lot of fires. The textiles are highly flammable.

  A fire starts by itself and everything goes up in flames（火焰）. But for some families the landfill is a source of income（收入）. People come here to find clothes, for themselves, or to sell at secondhand markets in town. There's no one here at the moment because there's just been a fire. A graveyard for used and unsold fast fashion. Manuela Olivas is in charge here.

  She picks up surplus（剩余） textiles（纺织品） in town and transports them to the dump. The clothing comes from all over the world. Sometimes I go and collect it from local shops. I go to the warehouses（ 仓库）. I ask if they have any stuff they can give me. If they do, I rent a truck and bring it all here.

  Anyone who wants to take her clothes has to pay her. I started doing this a long time ago. Back then, it was a mayor（市长） in my hometown for the first time. And more and more people settled（安排） here. That was about eight, or even 12 years ago. More and more people settled here.

  That was about eight, or even twelve years ago. Manuela and her husband live in a ramshackle hut surrounded（围绕） by mountains of used textiles（纺织品）. 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（全体船员） from around the world have come to report on the clothes dumping（倾卸） ground.

  Manuela Olivas tells them about her plight（困境）. She lives off a poultry（家禽） state pension（养老金）, the equivalent（等价物） of just 115 euros a month. Her husband is sick. They're all alone. Our huts outside town. Thieves know that no one will see what they're up to, so they come here and rob（抢劫） us.

  They've taken my rabbits, my ducks and pigs, even my birds. The couples still have a few animals left, but they live in constant（不变的） fear of being robbed（抢劫） again. No one takes pity（怜悯） 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（ 努力） to make ends meet, rejected clothing produced in China（瓷器） and Bangladesh, and sold in the US and Europe, continues to pile up around them.

  The town of Alto Hospicio is covered in a thin film of sand. Forty years ago, there was nothing but desert here. The establishment（确立） of a free trade zone（地区） 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（敏锐的） environmental problems in the whole region. In the desert surrounding the town, everyone does whatever they want.

  He knows exactly who to blame（责备） for the landfill sites. The used clothing business is highly lucrative for importers（进口商） of second-hand textiles（纺织品） in Iquique's free trade zone（地区）. There are fifty-three of these companies, and their business model is very profitable（有利可图的）, but only for them. It's detrimental（有害的） to the wider community. We head to Iquique. The provincial（省的） capital is sandwiched between the desert and the Pacific（太平洋）.

  This used to be a depressed（ 消沉的） region. Then the free trade zone, Sofri, was created, and a container port was built. Companies operating（操作） here enjoy various tax exemptions. Dario Blanco, head of the Iquique Free Trade Zone Users' Association（协会）, calls the Sofri a roaring（吼叫） success, in economic terms at least. The free trade zone was a political project. It meant that a lot of people from elsewhere（在别处） settled（安排） here in the arid（干旱的） desert region.

  It created economic advantages for people who moved to Iquique for work, as well as for investors. Importers of discarded and unsold clothes also benefit from tax exemptions. We come across American brands as well as governments that are clearly from Germany. Dealers（经销商） distinguish（区别） between three categories. The worst category is clothes with stains or holes. We discard them.

  An estimated（估计） forty percent of what's imported ends up thrown out. It varies（改变） 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（拉丁语） America's main importer（进口商） of discarded（丢弃） clothing, importing tens of thousands of tons per year. Some of it comes from Germany.

  We see one store that advertises clothes from Hamburg.