While on maternity leave, one resourceful mother discovered a clever way to save money and help the planet, ultimately earning herself £125 worth of points to spend in-store. Dayna Farrington, a shopping and TV writer, stumbled upon a little-known initiative from the high street pharmacy giant Boots that pays customers to recycle their empty products.
How the Boots recycling scheme works
The scheme is run through the dedicated Recycle at Boots app. To get started, users need to download the app, sign up, and link their existing Boots Advantage Card. The programme accepts two main types of waste: beauty product packaging and empty medicine blister packs.
For the beauty recycling stream, you need a minimum of five items. The list is extensive and particularly useful for parents, including empty shower gel bottles, make-up containers, shampoo bottles, and crucially, baby formula box lids, empty nappy packets, baby wipe packets, and bottle teats. The blister pack recycling requires empty medicine packaging.
The step-by-step process to earn points
First, you scan your five eligible items in the app and wait for approval, which Dayna reports usually takes less than 24 hours. Once accepted, you take the items to your local Boots store, find the recycling deposit box (often near the tills or at the back of the shop), scan the QR code on the box, check off your items, and deposit them.
Here's the key incentive: to activate your points reward, you must then make a qualifying purchase. For beauty recycling, spending £10 or more within three days earns you £5 in Advantage Card points. For blister packs, spending £5 or more gets you £1 in points. A clever tip from a Boots staff member revealed you can combine both offers in one transaction, spending just £10 to unlock both sets of points.
Turning everyday waste into significant savings
Dayna, who began using the scheme in July, has turned her family's everyday waste into substantial savings. In just five months, she made 37 deposits, recycling a total of 141 beauty items and 93 blister pack items, often with donations from family members. This consistent effort accumulated to around £125 in points.
She notes that the requirement to spend £10 is easily met by repurchasing the very items she just recycled, like nappies and wipes, making it a practical cycle. Beyond the financial benefit, the scheme offers the satisfaction of ensuring these hard-to-recycle items don't end up in landfill.
For anyone looking to make their spending go further and reduce their environmental impact, the Boots recycling scheme presents a win-win opportunity, proving that small, consistent actions can lead to rewarding results.
