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Chile's unique Atacama desert sullied by world's junk

Mountains of discarded clothing, a graveyard of shoes, and rows upon rows of scrapped tires and cars blight at least three regions of the desert in northern Chile.

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The Atacama, with its striking otherworldly beauty and expansive salt flats, has also been transformed by intensive mining for copper and lithium. Carmen Serrano, head of the Endemic Roots environmental NGO, said that most people see the Atacama as nothing more than "bare hills" where they can "extract resources or fill their pockets."