Boots has launched a blister pack recycling pilot scheme in over 100 stores in London and the South East, with plans to roll out the scheme to more stores across the UK in the next year.
Customers can drop off used blister packs for recycling in participating stores and receive a reward. 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.
The blister pack recycling scheme is an extension of the Recycle at Boots initiative, which rewards customers for bringing empty health and beauty products that cannot be recycled at home to collection bins 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.
Boots said the collection bins are available at over 700 stores across the UK and over 3.1 million products have been recycled since it launched in 2020. Blister pack collection bins are available at over 100 Boots stores initially and will be rolled out more widely in the next 12 months, the retailer said.
Blister packs, which are made of plastic and foil and used for vitamins and medicines, cannot typically be recycled through household kerbside collections. Boots said it hopes the new initiative will enable millions of used blister packs to be recycled and diverted from landfill over the next few years.
Commenting on the scheme’s launch, Natalie Gourlay, Head of ESG at Boots, said: “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.”
Customers can recycle blister packs from any brand and track their recycling using a Boots Advantage Card. The scheme is delivered using Boots’s technology partner Metrisk and recycling partner MYGroup.
Boots said that after the blister packs or health and beauty empties have been dropped off in-store, they are sent to MYGroup to be separated by a machine. The metal foil is recycled conventionally, the plastic is processed into a usable form again, where possible, or made into a material called MYBoardTM to be used for construction, furniture and more, Boots said.
