Why do Chileans throw a lot of clothes into the driest desert in the world? Nearly 40,000 tons a year, what is the purpose of throwing up discarded clothes in the desert?
On the territory of Chile, there is a desert called Atacama. Because of its proximity to the Pacific Ocean, the desert is affected by a variety of air currents, and the average climate throughout the year is particularly dry, with the highest degree of drought on earth.
Before knowing about the Atacama Desert, many people felt that the Sahara Desert was the driest desert. In reality, however, the Atacama Desert is 15 times drier than the Sahara Desert.
The Atacama Desert, known as the "dry pole", receives less than 0.1 mm of precipitation per year. I really can't imagine what kind of difficulties the animals and plants living here will face.
Perhaps, in such a harsh natural environment, there is no grass growing here. After all, drought-resistant animals and plants also need a little rain to nourish them.
In addition to the drought, the Atacama Desert is also extremely UV-rich. In addition, ultraviolet rays contain many harmful substances, which are extremely harmful to the desert environment and soil.
Who would have thought that in the past two years, the Atacama Desert has become popular again. Only this time, the cause of the explosion has nothing to do with the local climate and temperature, but with clothes.
You must be curious, how can the Atacama Desert have anything to do with clothes? This has to start with the fact that it receives 40,000 tons of clothes every year, as well as all kinds of household waste.
At some point, the Atacama Desert has become a large "garbage dump", where instead of endless yellow sand, there are colorful clothes and various waste rubber tires and other items.
Seeing this scene, many netizens couldn't sit still and began to speculate about why there were these domestic garbage in the Atacama Desert.
Most people feel that the Atacama Desert receives domestic waste in order to solidify the sandstorm, and these domestic waste has virtually become a "windbreak";
Some people also think that this may be a large storage plant for Chileans, and these waste items are temporarily stored here and can be reused in the future.
But in fact, the speculation of netizens is wrong, these old clothes and waste items can neither solidify the wind and sand, nor can they be reused, but simply use the Atacama Desert as a garbage dump.
Friends who are familiar with Chile know that it is a big recycling country for second-hand clothes, with an annual recycling volume of up to 59,000 tons. The clothes that are purchased will be resold by the locals...
However, the amount of recycling was too large, and soon there was a phenomenon of oversupply. Locals can't consume so many clothes and can only resell them to other countries in order to quickly digest these second-hand clothes.
In recent years, due to the influence of various reasons, the resale of clothes has also become a problem, and the supply is too huge, so I can only find a way to dispose of it.
Second-hand clothes that can't be sold become garbage. It's a pity that most of these clothes are textile materials, which are difficult to degrade quickly and naturally.
To put it simply: the municipal department does not allow items such as clothes and old tires to be thrown away as garbage, which will affect the city's appearance and increase the cost of degradation.
So where does this garbage go? Many people think of the Atacama Desert, which is not far from China. Since this desert is deserted and almost unattended and unmanaged, why not use it as a natural garbage dump?
As a result, this has become a garbage dump in the hearts of Chileans, and everyone has become accustomed to it over time. Over time, old clothes, old shoes, and old tires piled up in the Atacama Desert.
People just think about taking out the garbage, but they don't think about the impact of these garbage dumps in the Atacama Desert area. Because of the seasonal drought, there are no microorganisms here, and it is difficult to degrade these second-hand items.
Coupled with the relatively high temperature, these items that cannot be degraded will release a lot of harmful gases, and then affect the local environment, forming a vicious circle.
For this situation, there is no local department in Chile to control it, but all kinds of prevarication. As you can imagine, this is a huge project, and it is difficult for both the municipal sector and the private sector to digest this waste.
Instead of spending a lot of time, labor and cost to deal with it, it is better to just pretend that you don't see it, after all, the Atacama Desert is far from the city.
It's just that everyone forgets one thing: this kind of behavior seems to be worry-free and effort-saving, but in fact, it is destroying the living environment little by little. One day, the environment will become worse and worse, and the lives of the local people will naturally have a great impact.
As the saying goes: what you sow, what you reap. It is believed that in the near future, Chileans will pay a heavy price for their selfishness today. The environment is fragile and needs to be cared for by everyone.
