Boots has launched a blister pack recycling scheme in over 100 stores in London and South East, with plans to roll out the initiative across the UK in the next year.
Blister packs, which are made of plastic and foil and used for vitamins and medicines, cannot typically be recycled through household kerbside collections. Boots hopes the new initiative will enable millions of used blister packs to be recycled and diverted from landfill.
The blister pack recycling scheme is an extension of the ‘Recycle at Boots’ initiative, which rewards customers for bringing empty health and beauty product packaging that cannot be recycled at home to collection bins in its stores.
The collection bins are now available in over 700 Boots stores, with more than three million products being recycled since the scheme launched in 2020.
Customers near participating stores can now drop off their used blister packs for recycling in dedicated collection bins and get rewarded. Boots Advantage Card holders will receive 150 Boots Advantage Card points when they recycle 15 empty blister packs and spend £10 or more in-store.
Natalie Gourlay, head of ESG at Boots, said: “At Boots, we want to make it easy for our customers to make sustainable choices for a healthy planet – from the products they buy to how they dispose of the packaging once they have used them.
“Customers can now simply drop off their empty blister packs at Boots with the assurance that the materials will be given a second life and get rewarded for it too just like they can when they drop off other hard-to-recycle empties through Recycle at Boots. We will be taking the learnings of this initial pilot on board as we look to roll the scheme out more widely within the next year.”
NAM Implications:
- Boots thus secure the innovator’s advantage in ‘hard to recycle’ material…
- …with promises to extend the initiative.
- Now over to the consumer…
