Mick Clifford Podcast: How much damage is your Christmas jumper doing to the environment? 

Women search for used clothes amid tons discarded in the Atacama desert, in Alto Hospicio, Iquique, Chile. Picture: Martin Bernetti/AFP via Getty Images

How much damage is your poor old Christmas jumper doing to the environment? 

The cost of fast fashion is not just abuses of working and human rights, but also damage to the environment is now being acknowledged. 

Recent images from the Atacama Desert in Chile where hundreds of thousands of tonnes of unwanted clothes are left to rot slowly have presented the reality of what happens when we buy cheap and discard easily. 

The desert is one of the hottest places on earth and a favoured dumping ground for clothes from all over the world.

Jennifer Stevens has been looking at the trail of destruction left by the fast fashion phenomenon, in which a big offender this time of year is the Christmas jumper.