From Fashion Graveyard to Circular Future
How Chile’s EPR Law Aims to Clean Up the Atacama Desert
If you’ve seen the haunting images of discarded garments spilling across Chile’s Atacama Desert, you know the fashion industry’s waste problem isn’t just a supply chain issue, it’s an environmental and humanitarian one.
For decades, the Atacama has served as a final resting place for the Global North’s overconsumption, receiving tens of thousands of tons of used clothing every year. But that may finally be changing.
In June of 2025, Chile took a bold step by adding textiles to its Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) law. This move signals a major shift in how nations manage imported fashion waste, and positions Chile as a global leader in the fight against textile pollution.
The Atacama’s Burden: How Fast Fashion Ends Up in the Desert
Chile imports an estimated 126,000 tons of secondhand clothing each year, mostly from the US, Asia, and Europe.¹ Much of this arrives via the duty-free zone in Iquique, marketed as reusable garments.
But here’s the truth: most of it can’t be resold or reworn.
Exporters often bundle unusable or damaged clothing into these bales. When they reach Chilean ports, local sellers sort the few resalable pieces for street markets, while the rest, an estimated 39,000+ tons per year, is dumped, burned, or left to decay in the Atacama Desert.²
These synthetic garments, made from polyester, nylon, and acrylic, don’t biodegrade. Instead, they release microplastics into the air, soil, and water, while open-air burning emits toxins like dioxins and benzene.
For nearby communities in Alto Hospicio, this pollution isn’t theoretical, it’s daily reality.
“The environmental and economic burdens created by clothing waste in the Atacama Desert are precisely why exporting countries avoid dumping these items on their land. Instead, they leverage “circular economy” initiatives, exporting surplus clothing under the guise of sustainability"
— Rhozhen Panahi, Brooklyn Sports & Entertainment Law Blog (2025)
🇨🇱 Chile’s New EPR Law: A National Turn Toward Accountability
In a historic move, Chile expanded its Law No. 20.920 (the “REP Law”) to include textiles as a priority product category.³ This means:
Under the new law, textile importers must:
Register with a certified Producer Responsibility Organization (PRO) or have an individual waste management plan approved by the Ministry of Environment.
Track the volume, type, and content of clothing they import
Pay fees to fund collection, sorting, repair, recycling, and safe disposal
Meet recycling and reuse targets starting in 2029
Ensure traceability of goods throughout their lifecycle
The legislation follows the “polluter pays” principle: brands that profit from importing fashion must now take responsibility for what happens when it’s no longer wearable.
What will the funds support?
Collection centers at ports and cities
Textile-to-textile recycling and downcycling
Upcycling and repair programs
Training and integration for informal workers (often women) in sorting and repair roles
Chile’s Ministry of Environment is currently working with local innovators like Ecocitex, a circular fashion startup, to scale up recycling infrastructure using yarn made from discarded garments.
“We cannot recycle our way out of Chile’s high per-capita textile consumption. While EPR may not be the only solution, it is an important part of the broader effort to shift towards a circular economy for textiles.” — Tomás Saieg, Chief, Circular Economy Office at the Chilean Ministry of Environment.
How Does This Compare Globally?
Chile is joining a growing chorus of countries demanding more circularity and accountability from the fashion industry.
Here’s how the major programs compare in a quick snapshot:
Let's break it down more...
🇺🇸 California: SB707 (Responsible Textile Recovery Act)⁴
Scope: Signed into law in 2024, enforcement begins 2026–2030, shifts responsibility for end-of-life clothing and textiles from taxpayers and municipalities to producers
Who pays: Apparel producers, brands, and retailers with over $1M in sales in California must fund the program.
Mandates: Requires producers to join a PRO (Still in development for textile-specific PRO frameworks), provide annual data reporting on volume and waste diversion, and pay fees that go toward:
Collection programs
Sorting
Reuse/recycling infrastructure
Public education
CalRecycle (California’s Department of Resources Recycling and Recovery) is the lead regulatory agency.
Brands must:
Register with a certified PRO
Submit data reports about how much clothing they sell
Fund and implement plans to divert textiles from landfills
Comply with inspections and enforcement audits
If producers don’t comply, they can face fines or be prohibited from selling products in California.
Focus: Domestic collection and landfill diversion
🟢 Strength: State-level accountability in a major fashion economy, better infrastructure, and tax relief for municipalities.
🔴 Limit: Applies only to in-state sales; doesn’t regulate imports of used clothing; Potential pass-through costs: Brands may raise retail prices slightly to offset EPR compliance fees, meaning consumers could absorb part of the cost
🇪🇺 France: AGEC Law (Anti-Waste for a Circular Economy)
Scope: France was the first country in the world to implement EPR for textiles, originally launching it in 2007. In 2020, the AGEC Law expanded and modernized this framework, placing France at the forefront of circular fashion legislation.
Mandates:
Mandatory EPR Compliance
All fashion producers, brands, and retailers selling in France must:
Register with the national PRO Refashion
Report annual volumes of textiles placed on the French market
Pay eco-contributions based on volume, fiber type, and recyclability
Eco-Modulated Fees
Producers pay higher fees for garments made of hard-to-recycle materials (e.g., blends or synthetic fibers)
Lower fees are granted to brands using mono-materials, natural fibers, or easily recyclable garments
Ban on Destruction of Unsold Goods
Since 2022, France has banned the destruction of unsold clothing, including returns and overstock. Brands must now donate, recycle, or repurpose excess inventory. This was a major shift, targeting luxury and fast-fashion brands previously burning or shredding unsold goods to protect exclusivity or clear space.
Transparency & Consumer Awareness
Brands must disclose sustainability information on care labels and in product descriptions
Refashion provides annual reporting dashboards that show national reuse and recycling rates
Support for Reuse, Repair & Recycling
Eco-contributions fund:
Local sorting centers
Repair services
Reuse initiatives (secondhand markets, textile cooperatives)
R&D for textile-to-textile recycling innovation
Goal: Incentivize better design and materials at the production stage.
🟢 Strength: Long-standing system with real enforcement, strong PRO infrastructure, and eco-design incentives
🔴 Limit: National in scope, but strongly influencing EU-wide legislation
🇪🇺 EU: Textile Strategy (mandatory by 2025)⁵
Scope: Applies to all 27 member states; all fashion brands selling in the EU will be responsible for the full lifecycle of their products, from design to disposal.
Mandates:
Register with a national system
Pay into a collective fund (via a PRO) that covers waste collection, sorting, and recycling. Brands register with a PRO in each country they sell in.
Report on how much they produce and what happens to it
Eco-design (durability, repairability, recyclability)
Digital Product Passports
Where it was made
What it’s made of
How to care for it
How to recycle it
Separate textile collection at the municipal level
Focus: Cut textile waste and stimulate circular businesses
🟢 Strength: Unified framework across multiple countries that incentivizes circular business models
🔴 Limit: Implementation varies by country, and many systems are still being built
Why These EPR Systems Matter, Together
These regional approaches may look different, but they share a goal: stop fashion waste at its source and create fair, circular economies.
France led with the first textile EPR and transparency mandates
The EU is harmonizing and scaling that model
Chile is holding the Global North accountable for downstream waste
California is modeling how EPR can shift domestic burdens from taxpayers to producers
Together, these systems create pressure across the global fashion supply chain, pushing brands to rethink design, track product lifecycles, and reduce overproduction.
If aligned properly, these programs can complement each other by:
Closing loopholes where brands shift waste internationally
Sharing best practices and reporting structures
Encouraging global investment in circular infrastructure
Improve the fashion industry from the source down
Unintended Consequences: How EPR May Affect Global Secondhand Markets
While Extended Producer Responsibility policies are designed to clean up domestic textile waste, they may inadvertently place further strain on countries like Chile, Ghana, and Kenya, which already receive massive volumes of used clothing from the Global North.
Risk of Waste Laundering
As brands work to comply with EPR mandates, they may increase donations to charities and thrift stores. These organizations often export unsold items abroad, some of which are too damaged or low quality for resale.
If left unregulated, this process could result in:
Increased dumping of textile waste abroad
More unusable garments flooding secondhand markets
Environmental degradation and economic strain on importing nations
The UNECE-UNECLAC (2024) report warns that many “reusable” clothing bales shipped to Latin America and Africa are functionally waste, disguised under the banner of reuse.⁷
What Needs to Happen
To avoid shifting the burden, governments and brands must:
Enforce quality standards for exported clothing
Improve transparency in donation and resale chains
Collaborate with Global South governments to support local recycling and reuse infrastructure
Promote true circularity: not just offloading, but reabsorbing and remanufacturing materials
Final Thoughts: A Circular Future Is Possible
The Atacama’s dunes of discarded clothing aren’t just an environmental tragedy; they’re a mirror reflecting the costs of fashion’s throwaway culture. Chile’s EPR law offers a bold model for reshaping that system.
But to truly close the loop, we need global cooperation, responsible design, and a commitment to justice for workers, communities, and ecosystems alike.
What other countries could learn from Chile’s strides toward holding the right people accountable? Can this be implemented on a more global scale?
Let’s not export our problems. Let’s design solutions.
Works Cited
United Nations Economic Commission for Europe (UNECE) and United Nations Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (UNECLAC). Reversing Direction in the Used Clothing Crisis: Global, European and Chilean Perspectives. 2024,
Panahi, Rhozhen. “Unfashionable Waste: The Legal Fallout and Eco-Crisis of Fast Fashion in the Atacama.” Brooklyn Sports & Entertainment Law Blog, 2025.
“Chile Adds Textiles to EPR Waste Scheme.” EcoTextile News, 27 June 2025. https://www.ecotextile.com/2025062757899/news/legislation/chile-adds-textiles-to-epr-waste-scheme.html
“SB-707 Responsible Textile Recovery Act of 2024.” California Legislative Information. https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billTextClient.xhtml?bill_id=202320240SB707
European Commission. “EU Strategy for Sustainable and Circular Textiles.” 2022. https://environment.ec.europa.eu/publications/eu-strategy-sustainable-and-circular-textiles_en
Refashion. “The French EPR Scheme for Textiles.” https://refashion.fr
Ellen MacArthur Foundation. Pushing the Boundaries of EPR Policy for Textiles: Chile Factsheet. 2024. https://content.ellenmacarthurfoundation.org/m/2eeed8caddac7191/original/Pushing-the-boundaries-of-EPR-policy-for-textiles-Chile-factsheet.pdf
Ministerio del Medio Ambiente, Gobierno de Chile. Ley REP: Ley N° 20.920.
https://mma.gob.cl/ley-rep/
Referenced when discussing Chile’s official REP framework and Ministry requirements.Ecocitex. “Quiénes Somos.” https://ecocitex.cl
Mentioned as a local circular fashion initiative collaborating with Chile’s government.
Refashion (France’s official PRO). “Annual Report and Producer Guidelines.”
https://refashion.fr/pro/en
Used for the breakdown of France’s AGEC Law eco-modulation and funding structure.