MYGroup has supported Boots to launch a pilot blister pack recycling scheme in the health and beauty retailer’s stores.
Available initially in 100 outlets in London and South East England, the scheme plans to expand nationwide over the next 12 months. Boots Advantage Card members will get rewarded for depositing their empty blister packs under the scheme.
Blister packs, used for medicines and vitamins, are made from a mix of plastic and aluminium foil that cannot typically be recycled through household recycling services, meaning most end up in landfill or sent to incineration. 36 million tons of blister packs are produced globally each year.
MYGroup offers the only true end-to-end waste recovery process in the UK for blister packs, with other schemes relying on receipt of waste items via post, rather than the convenience of in-store deposit. With Boots one of the high street’s most visible, ubiquitous brands, the newly launched scheme therefore represents a huge step forward in helping consumers recycle this prolific waste item.
The launch extends MYGroup’s longstanding collaboration with Boots on its ‘Recycle at Boots’ programme, with waste blister packs now able to be deposited alongside empty health and beauty products in store. The overall scheme has seen over three million used products recycled to date.
MYGroup will collect and process deposited blister packs and other used products from the Boots stores at its state-of-the-art facility in Hull, East Yorkshire, where the company has installed a dedicated, specialised machinery line that separates the aluminium from the plastic.
All at the Hull site, the plastic will be recovered through a PVC recycling process, with the waste material returned to supply chains where possible or fed into production of the company’s own MYboard™ – a material similar in consistency to plywood, used widely for construction, joinery, shop and event fittings, as well as furniture for commercial and community settings, such as schools. The recovered aluminium will be sent to a local refinery for remanufacture into ingots.
Crucially, MYGroup’s blister pack recovery process also includes provision for accidental hazardous contamination from unused medicines that may be inadvertently deposited through the scheme, with the company holding the appropriate environmental permits to process such waste and still achieve full recovery of materials.
The company runs a similar in-store collection scheme at Tesco, in partnership with consumer healthcare company, Kenvue, and also provides specialist blister pack recycling programmes for GP surgeries, pharmacies and veterinary practices.
The launch of the scheme with Boots further established MYGroup as the trusted partner in the blister pack recycling space, and we’re proud to be taking our unique recovery solution further into the mainstream with the UK’s leading health and beauty retailer.
Thanks to our longstanding partnership with Boots and significant investment in our capabilities, we already have the relationships, expertise and reach in place to recover such a widespread waste item at scale as the scheme rolls out.
Steve Carrie, Group Director, MYGroup
