Recycle your empty beauty products at Boots

Boots, the leading health and beauty retailer with 93 stores nationwide, is rolling out the first-of-its-kind ‘Recycle at Boots’ scheme to 50 stores up and down the country, making it easier than ever for customers to recycle empty beauty, health, and wellness products.

The scheme is Boots’ latest initiative to help tackle environmental challenges in Ireland by inspiring positive actions – with a promise not to send any of the hard-to-recycle items to landfill or incineration.

Using Scan2Recycle technology, customers can use their mobile phone to scan products from any brand, including those not stocked at Boots and upload them to Boots Scan2 recycle.

Once verified, they can then head to a participating Boots store to deposit empty products at an in-store recycling point.

After dropping off in-store, the empty products are sent to Boots’ recycling partner, ReWorked, where they are then transformed into new items such as reusable storage containers that are now being used at Boots warehouses.

In return for recycling, customers will get rewarded - for every five products deposited, they will receive a voucher for 500 Boots Advantage Card points (worth €5 when you spend €10 or more) to use in-store or online within 3 days.

Maeve McNamara, Corporate Social Responsibility Manager at Boots said: “We are delighted to introduce the Recycle at Boots scheme to Ireland. Recycling processes for plastic beauty products, such as lipsticks and those with inbuilt pumps, can be quite difficult to dispose of. We hope that the scheme will help to streamline this process.

"As customers are becoming more eco-conscious, we are actively trying to help, and this new initiative feels like a real step in the right direction. We hope that our customers will embrace this new technology and help shape the way to a more sustainable future.”

Presenter and brand ambassador, Fionnuala Jones added: “The ‘Recycle at Boots’ scheme is a wonderful initiative to help people live more sustainably, something which I try to do in my daily life. The scheme makes it easier than ever for people to recycle empty beauty products that would otherwise go to landfill.

"I especially love that people can return products purchased from anywhere, from old mascaras and toothpaste tubes to finished lipsticks and empty vitamin pots. The added bonus is the Advantage Cards points!"

The ‘Recycle at Boots’ scheme was launched in the United Kingdom in 2020. The expansion of the scheme comes after Boots UK saw customers drop off over 1.4 million products since its launch.