Seoul upcycling event gives discarded items second lives
Seoul Nanji Water Recycling Center in Mapo, Seoul / Korea Times file
Discarded picture books, worn-down crayons and scraps of fabric will get a new life this weekend as Seoul hosts an upcycling festival built around a simple idea: What people throw away can become something useful again.
Seoul Water Recycling Facilities Corp. said Friday that it will hold the Earth Regeneration Project from 1 p.m. to 5 p.m. Sunday at the outdoor plaza of the Seoul Water Recycling Experience Center.
The event coincides with Resource Circulation Day, a legal observance intended to promote environmental protection and the importance of recycling resources.
The festival is being held alongside the center’s exhibition “Water That Goes Around,” which explores the journey of water as it flows, gathers and begins again.
Organizers said the event extends that idea beyond water, inviting visitors to see discarded materials as resources that can reenter everyday life in new forms.
Visitors will be able to make environmentally friendly bookmarks from recycled paper, decorate pouches with discarded banners and create crafts using sea glass collected as marine waste.
Other activities will use stubby crayons and discarded plastic to demonstrate how unwanted materials can be transformed into new objects.
An independent bookstore specializing in environmental and ecological topics in Gangseo District will display books about resource circulation and host the recycled-paper bookmark activity.
Green Development Station, a village enterprise, will lead the pouch-decorating activity using discarded banner fabric.
Moa Living SOC Cooperative will offer sea-glass crafts using glass collected from marine waste.
The center and its supporters will run activities using discarded crayons and plastic, along with a photo zone and social media participation event.
The Eco Friends children’s supporters will assist younger participants and explain safety rules at activity booths.
The corporation said visitors can join without advance registration and that canopy tents will allow activities to continue in rainy weather.
“The essence of water regeneration — turning wastewater into clean water and energy — is ultimately connected to resource circulation,” said Hong Nam-ki, head of the management and technology division at the Seoul Water Recycling Facilities Corp. “We hope this event will serve as an opportunity for citizens to discover new value in wasted resources around them, including water, and practice resource circulation in their daily lives.”
This article was published with the assistance of generative AI and edited by The Korea Times.