Used cars also flood into the country from the free trade zone. Many are exported to Peru, Bolivia or Paraguay, while others end up dumped in graveyards kilometers wide in the surrounding desert.
Piles of abandoned tires are also scattered across the desert.
The mayor Ferreira lamented a "lack of global awareness, a lack of ethical responsibility and environmental protection" from "the unscrupulous of the world."
"We feel abandoned. We feel that our land has been sacrificed."
- A 'VERY FRAILE' ECOSYSTEM'-
For more than eight million years, the 100,000 square kilometer expanse of the Atacama has been the most arid desert in the world.
Rain is rare, and in some parts, non-existent.
The driest part is the Yungay district in the city of Antofagasta. Here, scientists have found extreme forms of life, microorganisms that have adapted to a practically waterless world, high levels of solar radiation, and barely any nutrients.
Scientists believe these microorganisms may harbor secrets to evolution and survival on Earth and other planets.
NASA considers the Yungay district to be Earth's most similar landscape to Mars, and uses it to test its robotic vehicles.
While it doesn't receive much rain, large banks of fog roll across the desert, allowing some plants -- and some of the world's hardiest lichens, fungi, and algae -- to grow.
Scores of brightly colored wildflower species bloom when it gets above average rain in a spectacular display that happens every five to seven years, most recently in 2021.
It is an ecosystem that is "very fragile, because any change or decrease in the pattern of precipitation and fog has immediate consequences for the species that live there," said Pablo Guerrero, a researcher at the Institute of Ecology and Biodiversity and expert in desert cactus.
"There are cactus species which are considered extinct" as a result of pollution, climate change, and human settlement.
"Unfortunately, it is something we are seeing on a massive scale, with systematic deterioration in recent years."
