A volunteer with the Open House Festival in Bangor has been recognised for establishing a drink can recycling scheme at the annual August event.

Lisa Sharp, a Bangor resident, received the festival’s Volunteer of the Year Award last year after piloting the collection initiative with recycling organisation Every Can Counts. She has been volunteering at the music and arts festival for five years.

The effort gathered 85 kilograms of aluminium cans, generating £65 that was donated to a local charity. Volunteers collected the cans in dedicated bags from attendees at festival picnics.

Open House Festival, founded by Kieran Gilmore and Alison Gordon, takes place each August across multiple venues. Its programme includes Picnic in the Park at Ward Park, where the can collection ran. Volunteers assist with ticketing, seating, event set-up and litter picking.

For the upcoming festival, organisers aim to raise recycling visibility. Volunteers will wear backpacks made from repurposed PVC banners, making it easier for people to deposit their used drink cans as they walk through the park.

A blog post offering advice on how attendees can make their picnics more sustainable will also be released shortly.