Nigeria breaks ‘bottle tree’ ‎record

Nigeria broke the world record of the largest bottle tree in the world on Wednesday night in Lagos with eight thousand bottles, surpassing the‎ current world record of 1,000 beer bottles held by the Chinese city of Shanghai.‎

The record breaking bottle tree, which is situated along the Eko Atlantic stretch in Victoria Island, Lagos, venue of the much anticipated Lagos Countdown 2014, is made of empty beer bottles.

The tree is part of the side attractions for the annual New Year Lagos countdown organised by the Lagos State Signage & Advertisement Agency, LASAA, and Star beer.

Speaking at the press conference held on Wednesday to officially unveil the tree, the managing director of LASAA, George Noah, said the tree stood as an iconic landmark in Lagos.

“This is not just about arranging bottles, it’s an iconic landmark which will bring more people to the 2014 countdown,” he said. “Nigeria just broke the world record with this and I think Star should be commended for this. It shows their creativity and readiness to celebrate the Christmas and and New year in a grand style for Lagosians.”

Walter Drenth, the marketing director, Nigerian Breweries Plc, said he was humbled by the attraction to the Star bottle tree by Lagosians and those who appreciate creativity.

“We are overwhelmed at how our people generally have reacted to this humble idea of a giant Star bottle Christmas tree,” Mr. Drenthe said. “It goes on to show that people appreciate creativity and our efforts at adding excitement and joy, for which we are grateful.”

Asked if the bottle tree was officially certified by the Guinness Book of records, Mr. Drenth said officials of the Guinness Book of world records were aware and would be doing the official counting soon.

“We are in the process of making it official in the Guinness Book of Records,” he said. “A lot of people seeing this via the internet, Facebook, Twitter, they came with emails and messages ‎saying this was a world record. Currently, the process has began and the officials will soon be here to do the official counting and announce to the world.”

‎He said Nigerian Breweries embarked on the project to reaffirm its commitment to winning with Nigeria.

“This feat we have achieved is one that hasn’t been done before and we pride ourselves in the attempt to bring joy and perhaps even break a world record,” he said. “With this, we have put Nigeria on the world map and made Lagos, a tourist site that it truly is. We hope that Nigerians and Star Lager consumers appreciate it and see reasons to be proud of being citizens of Nigeria.”

The record-breaking tree is made with a total of 8,000 star beer bottles as against 3,000 bottles announced during the commencement of the project.

The Lagos 2014 countdown, a month long celebration which kicked off December 1 will end with a musical and comedy concert on December 31 into the New Year with the Lagos state governor, Babatunde Fashola and members of his government in attendance.