• Boots UK is launching a NEW recycling scheme, encouraging customers to bring back empty hard-to-recycle health, beauty and wellness products
• For every five products recycled, customers will be rewarded with 500 Boots Advantage Card points, worth £5
• Boots UK is the first retailer to use Scan2Recycle technology, allowing customers to track how much packaging they have recycled.
• Products from any brand can be returned

Boots champions reducing plastic waste in all areas of the business and today is taking further steps to becoming more sustainable by launching a new recycling scheme. The scheme encourages customers to bring back empty hard-to-recycle products (even from brands not stocked at Boots) and get rewarded for it.

In partnership with No7, the new scheme will be available in 50 Boots UK stores across the country from 24 September and is the first on the market to use Scan2Recycle technology. Customers can simply access the technology via a dedicated Boots Scan2Recycle website, where they can scan their empty products using their mobile phone and add them to their bank, before heading to a participating Boots store to deposit them at a recycle point and receive their reward.

For every five products deposited, customers will receive £5 worth of Boots Advantage Card Points**.The deposited empties are returned directly to Boots recycling partner, ReWorked, where they are formed into new products.

Joanna Rogers, Trading Director and VP of Beauty at Boots said: "To help our customers shop and consume more sustainably, we're excited to launch the most inclusive recycling scheme on the market. Customers will be able to recycle even the most difficult health, beauty and wellness empties, from old mascaras and empty toothpaste tubes to finished lipsticks and empty vitamin pots. Our customers can then feel even better about treating themselves with their Advantage Card points."

Last year, Boots became the first national pharmacy, health and beauty retailer in the UK to move to unbleached (brown) paper carrier bags, replacing plastic bags across its 2,465 stores. In 2019, Boots Opticians stores also introduced Recyclens, the first free recycling contact lens initiative in the UK. In 2018, Boots signed up to the UK Plastics Pact, a unique partnership for businesses across the UK with an ambition to work collaboratively to transform the UK plastic packaging sector by 2025. In 2017, it also changed Boots own brand cotton bud stems from plastic to rolled paper, and in 2015 it removed plastic microbeads from rinse off products ahead of the UK ban.

To find your nearest recycling bank visit Boots.com/Boots-recycling-scheme

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For more information please contact bootshealth@apteamwpp.com or call 020 3193 3382. Boots UK (boots.com)

*Exclusions apply: For health and safety reasons, we cannot accept the following items: aerosol cans, perfume bottles, nail polish bottles, hair dyes, brow and eyelash tints, safety razors and razor blades, disposable razors and razor heads, used PPE (disposable masks, gloves and visors), medicine, vitamins and supplements blister packs and foils; any electrical items such as hairdryers and straighteners and any medical devices, electrical or not.

** Terms and conditions apply. Boots Advantage Card Points will be capped at 500 per day regardless of how many products are deposited.

About Boots UK

Boots UK (boots.com), the UK's largest pharmacy-led health and beauty retailer, is part of the Retail Pharmacy International Division of Walgreens Boots Alliance, Inc. (Nasdaq: WBA), the first global pharmacy-led, health and wellbeing enterprise. With 2,465* stores in the UK, its purpose is to champion everyone's right to feel good. Boots UK is committed to providing exceptional customer and patient care, be the first choice for pharmacy and healthcare and offer innovative 'only at Boots' exclusive products such as No7, a leading UK skincare brand, Soap and Glory and Liz Earle. Created 170 years ago, the Boots brand is still at the heart of the communities it serves. *As of August 31, 2019 excluding equity method investments

About Reworked

Reworked Products is the Innovative plastic recycling arm of the MyWaste group. We specialise in the recovery and remanufacture of plastic product from the retail and consumer industry and also Ocean plastic recovery. Helping maintain a circular economy for plastic waste for brands and supporting the clean-up of the seas and oceans worldwide.

We will be taking the material from the Boots/No7 partnership and recycling all element back into graded granule for use in remanufacture. Our in house processing will create a clean graded granule which is used in new products. Our onsite board manufacturing facility will also create bespoke items such as furniture, shop fitting and building materials. www.reworked.com

About Metrisk & Scan2Recycle

Metrisk Ltd developed Scan2Recycle to reward consumers who engage with recycling, creating positive change and a lasting shift in behavioural trends.  Leveraging our partnership with ReWorked, a recycling powerhouse has been created, which delivers industry leading reporting and traceability, whilst importantly, 100% landfill diversion and zero incineration, ultimately helping to protect our planet for future generations. www.scan2recycle.com