Do you shop at Boots and have an advantage card? Scroll on.. points to be had for recycling!

[Netaporter]

Full details of the scheme below which I discovered from a skincare FB group I follow….essentially you get 500 points (£5) added to your advantage card when you recycle 5 items in store and spend £10 in store. You are then £5 up.

Firstly, It is a bit of a faff but ideal if a) you shop at boots b) have an advantage card c) you would ordinarily be in the vicinity of a Branch that has a recycling point..

What you need to do:-

1. Download the specific boots recycling app (this is different to the boots app)
2. create an account for the app (again, different to the normal boots app)
3. link your advantage card to the recycling app
4. find 5 tricky to recycle products (foundation bottles, primer tubes, etc etc) these can be any make, can be skincare, make up etc and boots do not have to be able to stock them. Aerosols are excluded.
5. take photos of each within the app, upload and fill the description of the product using the dropdown boxes
6. wait 24 hours for the 5 to be approved.
7. When approved, visit your recycling approved branch of boots. Find the green recycling bin. Scan the QR code and follow the instructions in the app. Select your 5 items, wait for them to be approved for deposit. Put them into the green bin.
8. In the rewards section of the recycling app you will see a voucher for 500 points if you spend £10 in store. You have 30 mins only to spend the voucher once activated so check the store has what you need prior to activation. You can activate the voucher whenever you want.
9. once at the till, scan your advantage card before you start. Then scan the item(s) adding up to £10 or more and then redeem your in-app voucher (also emailed to you) before checkout. 500 points (which can be spent at any time) are then added to your average card.
10. you can add 5 empties like this up to 8 x pcm. I think one group member said she recycles electric toothbrush heads so the possibilities are endless for household goods.

www.boots.com/shopping/boots-recycling-scheme

Do you work for Boots?

No. 😂

Just thought it might help someone before they chuck stuff away and then go and replace it… at boots…

Nice idea. Mac does this with foundation - take a few back and get a free lipstick - but I have loads of other stuff. I'll check it out. Thanks.

John Lewis do this too. (You get £5 off Beauty)

I spent £100 last month in boots (sun cream, holiday bits etc) so I am a bit gutted I didn’t know about it. Might help someone else avoiding the same mistake. Think you can recycle toothpaste tubes too.

Ooh. Off to check that out also!

I added the process because it is really difficult to decipher from the link. And I spent ages trying to use the normal app password 😂

Thanks for posting this, really potentially useful

However I'm a bit stuck on the bit where it says items must be totally used and clean.....some of these things are almost impossible to clean! Eg mascara, liquid eye pens, foundation pump bottles....

Any experience with this?

This is great thanks OP

I have a boots advantage card and shop there a lot (currently have over 30k points to give you an idea) and had no idea this was an option.

I've got £63 on my ad card since start of year, a mix of shopping and recycling. Don't worry about the toothpaste or mascara bottles, as long as you make an attempt to clean them, I recycle mine all the time.
You also have to spend £10 in store within 30mins of recycling.
I love it

I've made over £100 in points so far using this scheme! They accept so many things - toothpaste tubes, toothbrushes/electric toothbrush heads, empty floss packets, empty deodorant sticks, empty makeup containers etc...

Yep. Dropped them back as they were when finished. Did my best to clean out what was there but they weren’t spotless. No one checked..

Bloody hell… you could do all of your Xmas shopping on that 😂

Ooh. Digging out those from the bin now 😂

Thank you! Just downloaded the app 🙏

That’s a big faff. I already recycle with the JL beauty cycle scheme where you take five eligible containers in and get five pound of a 25 pound spend. Much easier imho.

Sure. But this is 50% back off a lower spend as opposed to 20% off a £25 spend so you’d expect it to be a bit trickier. And there are more branches of boots that recycle than there are JL branches so may be of use to someone?

They also have a few blister pack recycling bins, under the same scheme, but they're very few and far between. Tbh, I don't care about the points (the first lot I got went to waste because I didn't realise you had to use them the same day), I just wish that every Boots had a blister pack recycling bin.

Thanks for posting, I will have to see if my local boots have this service.
I think if it does I would go and find my £10 worth or products first to save trying to find when the clock is ticking down..

I've been doing this for a while, it's pretty easy and the points mount up. Mac stopped the free lipstick a couple of years ago

I'd start using your points if you have that many. They could stop the scheme at any time

Yes. They do actually clear / reset them now. I had an email (and subsequent reminders) earlier this year saying to spend mine as they would be removed by a certain date if I didn't.

I really like the John Lewis one as well when I go to buy one of my premium foundations. you just take five empty plastic toiletries products to the till ( can be shower gel too) scan your John Lewis membership card and get £5 straight away. You don’t need to wait

but I will definitely be downloading the boots one. Thanks for all of this information I’m always in boots so this would’ve been great for me.

@Netaporter, I use the recycle app for items you mentioned plus toothpaste tubes etc.

Do you know anything about Boots recycling foil medication packs? Seems you can recycle 15 sheets at a time in some stores. Can't figure out how? Do you photo them? They are recycled in different stores.

i've literally started doing this a few weeks ago and already have £15.

it is a bit of a faff at first, but easy once you get into the routine.