Venus: Roman goddess of love, desire, sex, fertility, prosperity… and now Lidl’s bottle and can return scheme pilot in Scotland, in which consumers can earn uncapped cash rewards for dropping off empty PET plastic and aluminium drinks containers.

On a wall in Glasgow’s trendy west end, the discounter commissioned mural artist Smug (Sam Bates) to paint a 25 ft piece based on renaissance painter Botticelli’s ‘Birth of Venus’. Quite how the artwork – which depicts the goddess in a giant scallop shell – links to Lidl’s 21-store rollout of reverse vending machines isn’t immediately clear.

On closer inspection, viewers might spot the work has been embellished with thousands of painted bottle caps. Both caps due to be recycled, as well as those already processed through the scheme over the past month – so a scan of the nearby QR code reveals. But the choice of artwork seems to have been primarily pun-driven: it’s called Bottlecelli. Groan.

It’s maybe brave of Lidl to commission a painting of a giant, naked woman in a public space. Why not a piece by Pablo Plastico or Claude Monet-for-used-packaging?

But the work is nevertheless stunning, and Smug – who also designed the cans for craft beer brand Northern Monk – has done a great job.

Following the disastrous, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory-inspired, so-bad-it’s-now-a-meme-for-childhood-disappointment Willy’s Chocolate Experience there last month, Glasgow residents were due a cultural boost. From trash, this is a real treasure.

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