There are several ways you can be eco-friendly using apps on your phone. While they won’t be clearing the air of greenhouse gases (the science just isn’t there yet), they will help you learn how to live life more sustainably.
From product scanners to supporting sustainable businesses, here are 5 apps that have made strides in the eco-friendly industry.
Ecosia
Ecosia was found in 2009 as a different way to search the net. It works much like any other search engine, but with a unique green twist.Every search guarantees a single tree to be planted somewhere in the world. In the years that follow, Ecosia has contributed to over 60 million trees and counting!The search engine also uses solar energy to power its searches. This makes your searches even more eco-saving than ever before. This app
You can select the trees you want to plant yourself as well. The trees are planted seasonally.Locations such as India, Madagascar, Indonesia, Uganda, and Brazil are only some of the places that are supported by Ecosia.
Too Good to Go
This app allows consumers to connect with businesses that have a surplus of perishable goods. This mostly comes in the form of food.Businesses will often sell food that is close to perishing at a third of their regular price. This not only helps businesses make ends meet but also significantly helps reduce food waste.Starting in Europe, it has since then made its way to North America in October 2020. There are now over 500,000 users since its creation in 2016.These users have helped save over 70 million meals all around the world. 87,000 businesses are joining the app. The environmental impact of food waste is often ignored.Apps like Too Good to Go are a great way to combat that waste.
OLIO
This app allows people to connect with businesses who are looking to give away their surplus items, be it food or non-food items.Formed in the UK in 2015, it was created when founders realized the amount of food waste in the United Kingdom.
Nearly £700 worth of food is wasted every year by the average family.This may not sound like much, but combine all that, and it adds up to billions of dollars. OLIO was made to combat this.OLIO allows individuals and businesses to offer up their excess food and products and share them with those in need.In addition, they even give you challenges to help make sustainability a fun and informative task.
Buycott
This app has many features geared towards smarter buying choices. Whenever you purchase a product, you can do a quick scan of its barcode.From there, the app will tell you all you need to know about the company and the product itself from a sustainability standpoint.From there, you can make your own informed decisions on what product to support.
Buycott is available anywhere you are, but it does require assistance from countries outside of North America.The information from Buycott is crowd-sourced, meaning that the bigger a user base is in a region, the more likely you are to get the info you need.In addition to the scanner, Buycott is also a platform for campaigns, causes, and petitions that are meant to help reduce carbon footprint.
Carpooling Apps
With the variety of carpooling services available in different countries, it’s best to share them all under this umbrella.Transportation is one of the largest CO2 emitters in the world. This is thanks to the excessive number of cars on the road. Excess cars lead to more traffic.More cars in traffic mean more cars emitting smoke without getting to their location.
Carpooling apps can significantly help reduce those numbers. Leveraging mobile application development services for Carpooling apps allows people to skip the need for their cars entirely.By carpooling with other people, you do more than just reduce your carbon footprint. Fewer cars on the road also mean less traffic.
iRecycle
iRecycle is an app that helps you find the nearest recycling establishments near you. The app is owned by Earth911 and is currently only stationed in the United States.It offers several recycling options and over 350 different materials to choose from for recycling. It can even cover difficult to recycle items such as batteries, mattresses, and refrigerators.The app will ask for permission to access your location so that it can provide you with a list of the closest recycling places near you.From there, you can tailor the app to your exact needs by adding your place of home and work.
The materials option is particularly useful if you have a bulk of the same kind of item you need to recycle.For example, if you have an abundance of plastic bottles, the app can let you know which establishments specialize in recycling them. This even works for more difficult items such as oil.
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