Boots Recycling scheme - 500 free Boots points - is it working for you?

DIYhelp76

Hi
I'm not sure whether this is posted in the correct forum, but if not please feel free to move the thread.
I wondered what other people's experience has been of this new Boots Recycling scheme. It is the one where you take 5 empty health and beauty items in to store and receive a voucher for 500 Advantage Card points, the equivalent of £5. 
I got to use it once in a participating Boots at Rushden Lakes but since then the deposit box has been taken away and no one in store can say when it is coming back. It is supposed to be running on a 6 month trial in 50 branches. I'm wondering in how many other locations this has already been pulled or whether it is just Rushden Lakes branch which has removed its facility?
When I last saw the box it was in Boots window and because the staff had not put the plastic bag into the container securely everyone's empty bottles were effectively in Boots front window. I expect this is the reason it has been removed but interested to hear other people's experiences in the other 49 trial locations.  It would seem rather unfair to remove the scheme for this reason.
The scheme itself seems to have been very poorly thought through (difficulties logging items etc) and poorly administered - again, I'd be interested to learn how have others found the trial at other locations?

starving_artist

I used the one in Oxford Street, London at the weekend.  The box was full and they had a bag next to it for the overflow (also fairly full).  A SA said it has been busy like this at the weekends.  I asked her how long they would be doing it and she seemed to think they were going to be expanding the scheme to other branches.  It is definitely a faff but the email voucher did come through.  I got the points added at a till on a different floor although it says you are supposed to use the No7 till.  I was worried that you had to use the points the same day but I think you just have to get them put on your card.

I had problems when banking items: the screen wouldn't let me scroll down the list of products.  I also couldn't work out what they meant when it said for some of them 'product only'.  Does that mean you are supposed to pour the contents in to the recycling box but not the actual container?  TBH I can't seeing it being a viable solution.

Lizzie25gl

This seems like a good enough scheme. I couldn't understand why , if you are already an Advantage Card holder that you had to register for the recycle scheme.  I started the process but withdrew my consent when it came to the Terms and Conditions. ....pages and pages. Felt like I was signing my life away and all my privacy so I am not doing it.

Lizzie25gl

I should have made it clear in my previous post that I am absolutely in favour of recycling schemes and I do in fact recycle more than goes in my general waste. I do, however,  object to sharing my private information with half the world for this particular scheme. 

macdoB

Boots Recycling - your query and points are still pertinent and I'd like to reanimate this thread!

Yes, you can get 500 points added to your Boots advantage card if you jump through the hoops, but there are quite a few hoops, it is complicated, and they have short timescales attached

I tried this in 2022and gave up as it was really glitchy. It has improved lately …

Method

1. have a Boots Advantage account

2. download Bootsrecyling app and sign your life away

3. Upload items to be recycled – take a picture, identify type of packaging, sort of product and make. This is then in your pending box. It will get approved – they say within 24h, and from that point I read that you have 24h (that’s not actually on the App’s FAQ so could be wrong)to get the items to the recycling bin. (you can say “same again”but not once they have been recycled so last week’s will not show)

If you recycle less than 5 after putting in the bin it says you gain no points and these items can not be accumulated over several recycling episodes, so put through 5 at a time. This is complicated as they may "refuse" an item

4. At the bin in selected Boots (see map on app) scan the bin’s QR code, tick what you have put in and deposit. You then immediately get a voucher which has to be used that working day.

5.At a “particiating store” (– no link on C32 coupon explanation – but I did use mine in a small Boots without the recycling bin) choose some shopping>£10, go to MANNED till, show Advantage card first, then scan stuff to be bought, then click “release voucher” and scan barcode (voucher is only valid 5 minutes once the reveal button is pressed).500 points should be added to your Advantage card on the receipt.

6. NB you cannot recycle and claim for more than 5 items and get one reward voucher in a day, up to 8 days in a month. (So you cannot stock up loads and do them all together – a shame as many of the recycling Boots are in the centre of towns)

It may annoy you so much that you wonder:

1. is this system so complicated so that Boots can greenwash themselves and claim to be actively promoting recycling whilst actually minimalising recycling as it is so complicated?

2. Is what Boots gets out of it also to monitor what people buy, and use and therefore recycle?

3. Did the person designing the system ever hear of the psychological impact of promising something and then telling the person that they did not quite get that something, is processed as “loss” and so customers might get really angry?

4. If Boots really wants to be green why don’t they think many of us would just bring these recyclables (not recyclable elsewhere) with no gift-points if t were easier?