Lidl Northern Ireland has today announced local aspiring artist, Jenny Hanna, as the winner of its sustainability colouring competition. Handpicked from more than 3,000 entries, Jenny’s design will feature on the retailer’s special edition batch of heavy-duty reusable shopping bags made with 100% recycled plastic.
Earlier this year, Lidl Northern Ireland launched a nationwide competition calling on budding artists from across the region to submit their shopping bag design entries with a focus on the theme of sustainability. Entrants were encouraged to get creative and submit a drawing, sketch or painting of what one of the R’s of Sustainability means to them – choosing from the themes ‘reduce’, ‘reuse’ or ‘recycle’.
Dundonald-based Jenny eclipsed hundreds of entrants to be crowned regional winner, with her masterpiece focusing on the reuse of plastic bags, depicting a bumblebee with the message “Bee clever, use me forever.”
The artwork is one of five designs set to feature on the special edition bag range, which will be available to buy across Lidl’s 210 stores throughout the island of Ireland from August.
Congratulating Jenny on her win, Owen Keogh, Head of Corporate Social Responsibility at Lidl Northern Ireland, said:
“We are incredibly proud to be leading the way in sustainability in the Northern Irish retail space. This initiative alone will see the elimination of 6.3 million ‘bags for life’ from circulation on the island of Ireland each year. With that in mind, we were delighted to see our recent competition spark the all-important conversation around sustainability and would like to extend a big thank you to everyone who entered the competition. Huge congratulations to Jenny whose design will feature on our 100% recycled plastic reusable bags from August”.
Commenting on the win, thirty-four-year-old Jenny, who is living with autism and has a passion for art, said:
“I was delighted and so surprised to get the call to tell me that my design had won Lidl Northern Ireland’s competition. I can’t wait to walk into my local Lidl in Dundonald and see my bag for sale. It is such an important initiative encouraging customers to reuse their plastic bags to protect our environment and reduce plastic waste.
I’m thrilled to also receive £500 in Lidl vouchers to spend in my local store. I’m not sure what I’m going to buy yet, but whatever it is, I’ll be carrying it home in the 100% recycled plastic shopping bag with my winning design on it.”
The introduction of Lidl’s 100% recycled plastic bags is the retailer’s latest move in tackling waste to protect the planet as part of Lidl’s ‘A Better Tomorrow’ sustainability strategy set in 2018, and complements a range of other in-store initiatives introduced over the last number of years. This includes the removal of plastic packaging on fruit, providing reusable fruit and veg bags and offering in-store recycling bins.
Under its sustainability strategy, the retailer has made a number of Plastic Pledge commitments which include eliminating single use plastics, using 20% less plastic packaging by 2022 and having 100% recyclable own-brand packaging by 2025. The theme of the competition is also aligned with Lidl’s Reset Plastic approach which focuses on Reduce, Redesign, Recycle, Remove and Research.