(image: Seogwipo City Office)
JEJU, May 16 (Korea Bizwire) — The old diving suits of haenyeo, Korean women divers, are transforming into tourism products.
The products feature the hard life of a haenyeo, and are drawing much attention.
The city of Seogwipo in Jeju announced on Wednesday that it has developed an upcycling product using old haenyeo diving suits, which were transformed into souvenir products for tourists.
Upcycling refers to a recycled product that is designed to enhance its utilization value.
Neoprene, which is used in the diving suits, is light, flexible, has a great cooling effect and is strong against external shocks.
However, it has become a problem in dealing with old haenyeo suits as it is not easily recyclable.
In Seogwipo alone, more than 1,000 diving suits are discarded every year, and most of them have been discarded as ordinary trash.
The city selected managing the old diving suits as a research task for future strategy teams and produced a prototype product using the diving suits.
As a result, the old diving suit signifying the hard life of a haenyeo have been reborn as coin purses, dolphin and pony dolls, key holders and frames.
Seogwipo will sell upcycling tour packages made with haenyeo diving suits from the second half of this year.
Ashley Song (ashley@koreabizwire.com)
(image: Seogwipo City Office)
