Did you know that our bathrooms are thought to have one of the biggest impacts on our home’s sustainability? Bathrooms typically use the most water and 4 in 10 people don’t regularly recycle bathroom waste like empty shampoo and shower gel bottles*.
In a high-street first, Boots is eliminating 2,020 tonnes of plastic from its Christmas gift ranges. By completely ditching single-use plastic packaging, all gift packaging will be plastic-free, giving customers the option to recycle and reuse.
“We’re thrilled to have removed throw away plastic from our gifts and will continue our efforts to combat plastic waste around the world,” says Eleanor Barker, Global Marketing Director for Gifting at Boots.
Boots is also partnering with BBC Earth to create a new gift collection for Christmas, made up of a selection of exciting bathroom presents that are kinder to the planet. Saving the equivalent of over 990,000 plastic bottles**, the new eco-friendly range provides sustainable and affordable bathroom alternatives, with plenty of gifts that are suitable for the whole family.
“The BBC Earth range is yet another amazing addition to our Christmas gifting collection this year at Boots. Searches for eco-friendly products on Boots.com have grown by almost a third over the last year***, so we expect to see a major shift towards conscious gifting this Christmas,” says Eleanor.
The BBC Earth range and removal of throwaway plastic is another step in the Boots sustainability journey. Last month, Boots UK launched a new recycling scheme encouraging customers to bring back hard-to-recycle items. In 2019, Boots became the first national pharmacy, health and beauty retailer in the UK to move to unbleached (brown) paper carrier bags as standard, replacing plastic bags across its 2,465 stores, and stopped using plastic glitter in any new products. 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.
For more facts on how the new Boots and BBC Earth Range is helping to make a change, check out the below infographic…
* Based on recycling research carried out by the Waste & Resources Action Programme charity (WRAP) during 2019
** Based on total number of range volumes of recycled rPET products and solid bar products within the range
*** Based on Boots.com data July 2019 vs July 2020