Waste and recycling

The issue

Over the last few years the need for the UK to reduce its reliance on landfill has become more critical as existing landfill sites are becoming full and new sites are not being developed. The use of landfill has also been linked to climate change as the gases released from such sites can contribute to climate change if they're not captured / treated.

In addition, the way in which waste is managed has become increasingly complex. New legislation covering areas such as what can be sent to landfill, and how hazardous waste, waste electrical and electronic equipment, and used batteries must be managed, alongside changes to the packaging regulations, for example, all continue to increase both the complexity of environmental compliance and business costs.

What we're doing

For many years Boots UK has been a leader in the management of waste and recycling activities within the retail sector, and has a sound record in waste minimisation that has placed us in a good position for dealing with new legislative requirements.

We've operated a recycling facility on our Nottingham Support Office site for the last 50 years. The current facility receives paper and cardboard, soft mixed plastic, glass bottles, printer toner cartridges and 35 mm film pots from our site and many stores.

All our distribution centres recycle cardboard and act as transit points for our shops to send recyclable material back to our Nottingham Support Office for "bulking up" and collection by recycling contractors. Over 22,500 tonnes of materials are collected, sorted and recycled each year.

In our warehouses we recover the transit packaging, cardboard and plastic which we have removed from our suppliers' deliveries. Bubble wrapping, returned from our stores, is re-used to protect some of our bottled pharmacy medicines sent to stores.

We now have around 20% of the former Alliance Pharmacy outlets recycling cardboard waste, following the integration of Boots the Chemists and Alliance Pharmacy businesses and rolling out the “your local Boots pharmacy” re-branding programme. In 2009/10 we will expand this number further by working with our waste contractors as their cardboard collection routes expand.

In 2008/09 we have expanded the use of Energy From Waste plants and Materials Recovery Facilities where these are available locally to where waste is produced.

We're continuing to focus on reducing our reliance on landfill, and have set an aspirational target to achieve a further 20% reduction in waste sent to landfill by March 2013 on a like for like basis from 2007/08.

This year we have reduced the percentage of waste sent to landfill by 3% from 50% in 2007/08 to 47% in 2008/09. During this same period our actual waste tonnage sent to landfill reduced by around 2,000 tonnes.

The chart below shows our waste and recycling data for 2008/09.

Total Waste Produced