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Meet the woman giving Jeju’s sick seas a shot at recovery

Published: 09 Jun. 2025, 11:30 Updated: 09 Jun. 2025, 13:06

Diphda Jeju founder Byeon Su-bin raises her arms in triumph after collecting marine waste off the coast of Bukchon-ri, Jeju Island, in 2024. [BYUN SU-BIN]

The ocean floor off Korea’s southern coast holds strange things: Discarded syringes, Chinese snack wrappers and even a North Korean saline pack. Waste collector Byeon Su-bin has seen it all.

The 35-year-old founder of Diphda Jeju has pulled more than 123 metric tons of garbage from Jeju Island’s surrounding waters over the past seven years. Once a museum curator, Byeon now spends her days diving for trash — and sounding the alarm.

To mark World Environment Day on June 5, Byeon presented findings at a forum on reducing plastic production held on Wednesday. The data, drawn from the first five months of 2025, offered a disturbing glimpse into one of the ocean’s most toxic pollutants: medical waste.

Between January and May, she and her team made 73 dives at 19 sites off Jeju Island's coast. They retrieved 20 tons of trash — including 54 hypodermic syringes with needles attached, 260 medicine bottles and 155 other pharmaceutical items such as blister packs and injectable drug containers.

Some of it appeared to come from households: insulin needles, nutritional supplements and even veterinary medicine.

“Of all the debris we collected, medical waste was by far the most alarming,” Byeon said. “A few drops of sunscreen can threaten coral reefs. Now imagine what discarded syringes and medicine are doing to marine life.”

From land to sea

Under Korean law, medical waste must be placed in sterilized, designated containers before being incinerated. Expired medication should be taken to public health centers for proper disposal. Throwing such items into household trash, drains or toilets is illegal due to risks of infection and environmental damage.

Some of the medical waste collected by Diphda Jeju from the waters off Jeju Island between January and May 2025. [DIPHDA JEJU]

Yet that’s precisely what many people still do, Byeon said — and some of that waste ends up in the sea.

“About 70 percent of marine waste originates from land,” she said. “It likely flows in through rivers and streams.”

Jeju Island’s location adds complexity to the problem. The island sits in the path of the Kuroshio Current, the world’s second-largest ocean current, which carries garbage from distant shores.

Byeon often guesses where the trash comes from by examining its packaging. Most of it appears to be from China, but she once picked up a saline bag from North Korea.

“This isn’t just China’s problem,” she said. “Korean waste drifts to Japan too."

To address it, Byeon called for international cooperation. “We need a global monitoring system and shared data if we’re going to tackle marine waste.”

Gallery walls to ocean coasts

Byeon didn’t set out to become an environmental activist. She once worked as a curator at Jeju Museum of Contemporary Art and spent her days off free diving. In the early 2010s, the ocean around Jeju still looked pristine — but over time, she noticed more and more trash below the surface.

In 2018, she and a few friends launched Diphda Jeju to clean up what they called their “playground.” Four years later, she left her job to focus on marine cleanup full time.

The work is punishing. Water temperatures can reach 32 degrees Celsius (90 degrees Fahrenheit) in summer, leaving divers breathless. In winter, strong currents bring waves of trash.

In December 2023, while diving off Jeju’s Gosan-ri, Byeon recovered 2 tons of garbage in a single day, including 2,160 plastic bottles.

“It looked like there was more plastic than pebbles on the beach,” she said.

In May, members of Diphda Jeju and haenyeo work together to collect submerged marine waste in this photo uploaded to Diphda Jeju's Instagram. [SCREEN CAPTURE]

Building a community

Byeon and her volunteers now conduct nearly 160 cleanup dives a year. As ocean pollution gains attention, so does their cause, Byeon says.

Their community cleanup initiative, bonggegging — a blend of the Jeju dialect word bonggeuda (to pick up) and Swedish-originated plogging, the act of jogging while collecting litter — now has more than 360 members. Even traditional haenyeo, Jeju’s iconic women divers, have joined the effort.

“Haenyeo say the ocean used to be like a forest, full of life, back when they picked up abalone and not trash,” Byeon said.

“Restoring it takes more than personal effort. We need governments, companies and the global community to step up.”

Translated from the JoongAng Ilbo using generative AI and edited by Korea JoongAng Daily staff.
BY LEE SU-MIN [[email protected]]