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The world’s largest used-clothing hub is the classroom.
The Textile Waste Expeditionary Summit convenes apparel, footwear, and textile companies, the organizations that recover and manage textiles after use, circularity experts, and policymakers — at the intersection of one of the world’s largest secondhand-clothing hubs and the global question of where our clothing goes after use. Chile now generates an estimated 572,000 tonnes of textile waste a year — roughly 32 kilos per person (Ministry of the Environment).
Northern Chile — the Iquique Free Trade Zone (ZOFRI) and the surrounding Atacama — is a concentrated, highly visible example of the complex global secondhand-clothing trade. The widely shared images of desert dumps galvanized public concern, but they show only one slice of a much larger reuse and trade infrastructure that now sits directly in the path of Chile’s new textile EPR rules and emerging U.S. frameworks.
This is a learning experience built for the people shaping active U.S. policy — designed to make the operational, social, and environmental realities of global textile flows legible before Extended Producer Responsibility scales nationally.
Iquique and Alto Hospicio, told in pictures.
Chile is the world’s fourth-largest importer of second-hand clothing — more than 123,000 tonnes a year, per the Ministry of the Environment — much of it entering through Iquique’s ZOFRI free-trade zone, where it is sorted and re-exported as graded commodities or kept for domestic reuse, with only an estimated 10–15% becoming waste. Many of the waste sites that drew global attention have been cleared or burned, but new ones keep appearing — and established sites remain where participants will see the full chain firsthand, and learn from the past, from import to end market.
Firsthand observation, then implementation-focused dialogue.
Participants travel to Iquique and Alto Hospicio to observe how used textiles are imported, sorted, graded, and re-exported — and how the free-zone model depends on specific tariff classifications (HS 6309) and trade agreements. They study residual fractions: how much material is genuinely non-reusable, how it is baled and stored, how textile-residual management has changed in recent years, and how new recycling capacity is being planned in response to policy signals.
The expedition creates a direct bridge between what participants see and the policy choices ahead — with panels, workshops, and dialogue alongside Chilean policymakers, municipal officials, NGOs, and technical experts. It is being developed in close coordination with Chilean partners, with engagement anticipated across national, regional, and local government.
The experiential day
On the field-immersion day, participants split into small groups and rotate through three settings — the full arc from market to sortation to residual sites, seen firsthand.
Feria La Quebradilla, one of northern Chile’s best-known open-air used-clothing markets, on the edge of Alto Hospicio.
Where imported bales are graded into commodities for reuse, resale, repair, wiping cloth, and recycling.
Accessible textile-residual sites, visited with full protective gear — coveralls, masks, and steel-toed boots.
Through this expedition, U.S. stakeholders will
A neutral guide for the policy that follows.
A neutrally convened CircleGuide on Textile EPR, published in 2027 to support U.S. state agencies, legislators, brands, and system operators — drawing on insights from this expedition and subsequent virtual sessions.
- →Provide firsthand exposure to the realities and limitations of current global textile recovery systems.
- →Build cross-sector understanding across policymakers and textile circularity stakeholders.
- →Increase understanding of operational realities and limitations of recovery systems in the U.S. and globally.
- →Explore how U.S. PROs and brands might coordinate with Chilean authorities to avoid double charging and gaps in responsibility.
- →Draw lessons from international textile EPR and circularity programs, including Chilean experts.
- →Support practical discussions on collection, reuse, sorting, recycling, and responsible end markets.
- →Help inform future U.S. textile EPR frameworks.
- →Foster relationships and ongoing information exchange beyond the expedition itself.
Five days, end to end.
Arrivals into Santiago. 8:00 PM CLT — opening drinks, networking reception, and expedition orientation.
Policy briefings and a textile-systems overview, then travel to Northern Chile and the Iquique region.
Participants split into small groups and rotate through the textile market, sortation facilities, and accessible residual sites (visited with protective gear), with stakeholder dialogue alongside local NGOs and technical experts.
Implementation-focused workshops on textile EPR, recovery infrastructure, responsible end markets, and future U.S. policy considerations.
Departures and return travel to the United States.
A deliberately mixed table.
The summit follows Circle’s established model of neutral, multi-stakeholder convening — developed across packaging EPR, circular policy, and material recovery. All programming is educational in nature.
State legislators, regulators, and agency staff working directly on U.S. textile EPR
Apparel, footwear, and textile brands and retailers covered by U.S. EPR laws
Resale, recommerce, collection, sorting, and recycling companies
NGOs and circularity-focused investors in EPR design and infrastructure
Technical experts in materials, trade, and waste systems who advise on policy
We’ve run timely expeditions at the heart of the world’s biggest challenges before.
Circle has spent ten years convening unlikely stakeholders across highly polarized material and policy debates — packaging EPR, advanced recycling, circular infrastructure, and the global plastics treaty negotiations.
The approach is rooted in neutral facilitation, firsthand learning, and systems-level dialogue — built to increase understanding across sectors that rarely engage constructively in the same room.
The Textile Waste Expeditionary Summit extends that model into the textile sector, at a moment when U.S. policy momentum, infrastructure limits, and global waste consequences are converging.
The 2019 Ocean Plastics Expedition
In 2019, OPLN sailed industry, NGO, and policy leaders to the North Atlantic Gyre — the heart of the ocean-plastics crisis. The science was settled, but it still needed to be seen to be understood. That voyage put historically oppositional stakeholders in the same boat, and the consensus it built became the model for everything Circle has convened since.
Become a founding supporter.
A limited number of organizations will serve as founding supporters of the expedition and the Circular Leadership Network (CIRCLE) for Textiles — a neutral, multi-stakeholder educational platform advancing textile circularity policy and implementation readiness across North America.
Support underwrites the expedition, subsidizes participation by policymakers and regulators, funds the Textile EPR CircleGuide, and seeds ongoing programming. All tiers include Founding Membership in CIRCLE for Textiles through December 2027.
- +8 guest rooms & 8 participation slots
- +Founding Partner recognition throughout all materials
- +Premier logo placement on event & participant materials
- +Verbal recognition at opening & closing plenaries
- +Input into two workshops or dialogue sessions*
- +Priority access to curated networking
- +Sponsor of one expedition dinner
- +5 guest rooms & 5 participation slots
- +Expedition Partner recognition in materials
- +Prominent logo placement on signage & materials
- +Acknowledgment during plenary programming
- +Input into one workshop or dialogue session*
- +Sponsor of one expedition dinner
- +Enhanced visibility in partner communications
- +2 guest rooms & 2 participation slots
- +Supporting Partner recognition in materials
- +Logo on shared signage & expedition webpage
- +Recognition during collective partner acknowledgments
- +Sponsor of one breakfast, lunch, reception, or happy hour
- +1 guest room & 1 participation slot
- +All programming, field visits, workshops & networking
- +Listed among participating organizations
- +Founding Membership in CIRCLE for Textiles
*Input opportunities are subject to Circle’s neutral convening principles. Dinner and meal sponsorships include signage and welcome remarks consistent with the educational nature of the event.
What’s included in CIRCLE for Textiles.
Founding Membership runs through December 2027 — a continuing platform for readiness, immersion, and cross-sector learning.
The Textile EPR CircleGuide and related educational resources
Textile EPR Readiness programming for emerging policy requirements
Access to policy immersions, study expeditions, and learning opportunities
Programming alongside policymakers, brands, collectors, sorters, recyclers, NGOs, and experts
Preferred access to future CIRCLE for Textiles expeditions, study tours, and leadership programs
Stand in the desert. Then help write what comes next.
We would welcome the chance to walk you through founding support and options for the November–December 2026 expedition.
Proposal for the Textile Waste Expeditionary Summit convened by Circle by OPLN. Field reference: the Atacama Desert, Tarapacá Region, Chile. Expedition photography © OPLN; Atacama desert imagery via Unsplash (free license). All programming is educational in nature. Chatham House Rule observed. Reviewed for antitrust compliance.
The partners on the ground and in the room.
STGO SLOW
STGO SLOW, a Chilean consultancy specialising in sustainability trends and circular economy. Founded in 2017, with expertise in field consultancy and EPR Systems. STGO Slow developed the Impact Study on Second-Hand Clothing in the Tarapacá Region for the Tarapacá Regional Secretary of the Environment, along with a historical mapping (2012–2025) of illegal dump sites and characterisation of waste in risk situations.
Clear Strategy
A sustainability and circular-economy advisory that helps producers, brands, and policymakers navigate extended-producer-responsibility (EPR) requirements — from program design and stakeholder engagement to turning complex material-recovery systems into actionable strategy.
National Stewardship Action Council
A U.S. nonprofit advocating for a responsible, circular economy through extended producer responsibility — convening producers, government, and civil society to advance product-stewardship policy across textiles, packaging, and other priority materials.
In keeping with Circle’s neutral convening model, all recognition emphasizes support for educational programming, systems understanding, and cross-sector dialogue — never advocacy, product promotion, or policy positions. Recognition supports the participant experience while preserving the independence of programming and public-sector participation decisions.
In accordance with applicable ethics rules and government-integrity requirements, partners have no role in determining, directing, or influencing invitations to elected officials, government employees, regulators, or other public-sector participants. All such decisions are made solely by Circle, in its independent discretion and consistent with applicable law.