Jeju City will hold the '2026 Earth Environment Festival' around Sarabong on the 18th. The event is timed to Earth Day on the 22nd, and daytime recycling activities and an evening blackout divide the day in two. Two days remain until the opening.
The recycling activities are closer to putting into people's hands the process of returning an object that would be used once and thrown away to a state where it can be used again. Rather than hearing an explanation of how the slick surface of a PET bottle and the rough grain of paper branch off down different paths, visitors sort them themselves. The texture a hand remembers lasts longer than the sentences on an information board.
In the evening the lights go out. For the few minutes the lamps are off, the outline of the city below the oreum blurs, and instead the sound of wind combing through pine branches and the water below grow distinct. Blackout events are held across the country to coincide with Earth Day on the 22nd, and Jeju tries the same kind of practice on top of an oreum four days earlier.
Sarabong is a low hill set between downtown Jeju City and the sea. It has long been known for its sunset views, and it is now also a walking path that local residents climb up and down at dawn and in the evening. The fact that it was a slope of daily life before it was the name of a tourist site connects to the reason the event is held here.
On an island, the environment has trouble staying a sentiment. Garbage, water and electricity cannot be sent outside the way they can on the mainland, so the limits of processing come back as the limits of daily life. That circumstance runs through the choice to treat recycling in the form of a festival.
At the same time the event is itself a burden. When people gather, the dirt paths of the oreum are pressed down, and a day's worth of electricity and a day's worth of garbage are left behind. Only a festival that does not cover up this mismatch, gathering to consume in the name of conserving, earns the grounds to be held again the next year.
Comfortable walking shoes are better for the trip. The slope of the oreum is on the gentle side, but the path mixes dirt and stone, and during the blackout the ground underfoot grows noticeably dark. The April evening wind on Jeju comes straight up from the sea and is cooler than during the day.
The few minutes with the lights off do not carry over into photographs. To find out how thick that darkness is, and what sound the city makes then, there is nothing for it but to stand on the slope of Sarabong on the evening of the 18th.
Event Information
Date: Saturday, April 18, 2026
Venue: Around Sarabong, Jeju City
Host: Jeju City
