Chile’s desert dumping ground for fast fashion leftovers | Hacker News Reader

Chile’s desert dumping ground for fast fashion leftovers

aljazeera.com

22 pointsjelliclesfarm14 comments

I hope fast-fashion and reliance on synthetics goes rapidly out of fashion or gets taxed.

Let's go back to clothes that were built to last and could be reused for other purposed once their useful life was over.

Put on end to needless visual-effectual destruction of perfectly good clothes ("acid washing", slits and artificial wear, etc., which reduce garment life.) and also return to natural fibers except for where synthetics perform better (like for extreme weather like rain, sleet, and freezing conditions as well as sports) but for every day wear, reusable fibers would be better. Slow down the cycle.

Hey, more careful drying makes a big difference. That dryer lint is your clothing disappearing.

The next genearation or two will need to be increasingly conscious of resource-preserving behaviors. It doesn’t matter if a couple of people reduce their consumption. It matters if most do.

I am still confused about what "fast fashion" actually is. Does it mean "cheap clothes that wear out quickly"? Clothes that are made quickly? How does it differ from normal fashion?

The meaning varies. There's no ISO team that checks whether your practice conforms with a standard meaning.

A chain where I occasionally buy things replaces its inventory every three weeks (I've heard, and my experience doesn't contradict it). The designers are fast, basically they throw shit on the wall. New models of shirts arrive every week, which is fast. If something doesn't sell, they start discounting very fast. This is all so fast that by the time they can see whether something is a success, production has stopped. But they design and make a variety of new models like it, and get those to the shops fast. They design, make and sell summer clothes during the summer, which is fast.

Other chains also speed up some other things, such as working time per seam sewn. Many fans throw away clothes quickly, or at least so I've heard, but I've never heard that from fans, only from disapproving detractors.

Describes the whole cycle: faster from design to production, then from production to distribution and sale, and finally, from use to disposal, because the materials and construction are not designed for durability, and the styles are optimized to capture very current trends (example: those silly-looking women’s shirts with long sleeves but holes over the shoulders)

Ahh. So like "disposable fashion"

Pretty much. It’s worked its way up the food chain into formerly mid-range ladies’ brands also being flimsy, trendy stuff that looks like crap within a year because it washes poorly, is very dated, or both. It’s nearly impossible to find a plain, well-made, machine-washable solid-colored ladies’ cut t-shirt, even before all the Covid disruptions.

Reminds me of a trip to Peru in the aughts. There were either a lot of local Ron Paul for President supporters in Cusco or someone had dumped a lot of tees there.

Textiles being dumped in Peru particularly hurts my soul because their local textile industry is such a deep part of their history and culture. I’m sure by this point we’ve all read about how our clothing “donations” have destroyed most of the local textile industry in Africa.

>“The problem is that the clothing is not biodegradable and has chemical products, so it is not accepted in the municipal landfills,”

I assume this has to do with coatings like scotchguard, as opposed to the composition, which isn't much different from packing materials and other household trash.

But do they deny landfilling entire types clothing because of the coatings of very few of them?

I wouldnt read too much into that. It costs money to dump at a landfill, desert is free.

If the insulation manufacturer is lying about that, it's just to get raw materials for his operation cheaper, like harvesting from piles in the desert. He doesn't want it going to the landfill in the first place.

Are stitched clothes really efficient? If we can regulate core body temperature, it becomes a matter of draping. And fashion.

I have often wondered if in some near sci fi future, humans would simply wear protective skin suits that are embedded with sensors and regulators. It can even measure vitals like our wearables do. Clothing can be holographic and we can just purchase digital fashion for appearance sake.

Rag paper, perhaps? Not a great location for a paper plant.

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