Drawing inspiration from the world around them, and their own imagination, children are 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’.
Angela Connan, Corporate Social Responsibility Manager at Lidl Northern Ireland, said:
“We’re delighted to launch our brand new heavy-duty recycled plastic shopping bags this year, but we can’t do it without the help of young creatives across the region. We’re looking for someone with bags of style to put the finishing touches on our shopping bags and create a stylish design centred around the theme of sustainability.
Whether you create a drawing based on reusing egg containers as seed pots, a painting of your family recycling glass bottles, or sharing a photo of how you have grown your garden into a haven for bees and butterflies, the creative possibilities are endless!
We’ve had a lot of fun with this initiative and each bag comes with a quirky pun, voted for by Lidl Northern Ireland colleagues, offering a funny and friendly reminder for shoppers to reuse their bags.
We hope that this competition will spark important conversations around the over-reliance on plastic and encourage us all to re-think how it is used and what we can all do individually to help reduce plastic in our environment. It’s also a great way to get crafty over lockdown and we wish all the young artists the best of luck!”
To be in with a chance to win, pick up a colouring competition entry form in any Lidl Northern Ireland store from Monday 25th January, or download the form at www.lidl-ni.co.uk/shopping-bags and print it off at home. To submit your masterpiece, entrants can take a picture of their creation and upload it to the competition’s webpage. Entries close at 11.59pm on Sunday 28th February.
One lucky winner will be chosen to have their submission brought to life on Lidl Northern Ireland’s new recycled shopping bag range, available in all 40 stores across the region from September 2021. The winner will also receive a £500 Lidl Northern Ireland gift card.
The introduction of the new 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.
“We’re proud to be leading the Northern Irish retail sector in implementing sustainable initiatives that benefit our environment, our communities and our customers. With sustainability and environmental impact continuing to be a key focus for us in 2021, we’re delighted to kick off the year with this fantastic campaign which engages our communities and promotes a responsible approach to consumption and waste management.
Through this initiative, we will see 6.3 million ‘Bags for Life’ eliminated from circulation throughout all stores across the island of Ireland by May 2021,” said Angela.
‘Bags for Life’ are reusable shopping bags made from plastic which, although are meant to be an environmentally friendlier alternative to single-use plastic bags, can often have a large environmental footprint as they are frequently not reused.
Luke Lewis, aged 5, with Owen Keogh, Head of CSR at Lidl Ireland.
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