However vital for our planet it may be, living a sustainable life isn’t always easy. It seems like the rules are constantly changing. Even what you can and can’t recycle is still confusing for most and changes based on local municipalities. Still, it’s crucial more than ever to reduce our dependence on the earth and make it a healthier place to live.
Luckily, we also live in a society where tech can better the world. What do we mean by that? Check out these 11 eco-friendly phone apps that help you stick to a more sustainable lifestyle. Download one or a few to help yourself keep on track and make green living as easy as ditching plastic bottles and protecting your phone with a compostable phone case.
#1 OfferUp
OfferUp allows you to sell and get rid of unwanted items. On OfferUp, you can sell anything from books to electronic devices. In fact, if you upgraded your phone lately, you can sell your device through OfferUp, along with any phone accessories. This way, items like iPhone cases and AirPods cases can be used by someone who has an older model. You never know — someone could be looking for that one thing that’s collecting dust.
#2 Too Good To Go
Every year, one-third of food produced globally goes to waste, which equates to eight percent of all greenhouse gases. So it’s important to be more mindful of how much food we throw out. That’s where the Too Good To Go app comes into play. As a food waste prevention app, they send you alerts on surplus foods from local stores and even restaurants. Plus, you get it for a pretty good price.
#3 thredUP
The UN Environment Programme has revealed that the fashion industry is responsible for eight to 10 percent of global carbon emissions, with fast fashion taking most of the blame. While it’s hard to reduce our clothes down to a capsule wardrobe, having the ability to buy second-hand online is a wonderful way to stop buying new apparel. Thanks to eco-friendly fashion apps like thredUP, you can shop more sustainably, giving a garment a new life instead of sending it to the landfill.
#4 PaperKarma
Tired of getting physical junk mail? With PaperKarma, you simply take a photo of the piece of paper and opt out. Within one to three cycles, the ads and magazines will stop showing up and being thrown in the garbage or recycling. Saving trees and printing resources is that easy!
#5 DoneGood
Whether you prefer to shop eco-friendly, cruelty-free or both, DoneGood will help you find the sustainable products and the brands you need. Plus, you can find discount codes exclusively through the app to help you find good deals. Through the DoneGood app you can shop everything from home goods to fashion, all from the comfort of your home and saving you time and research.
#6 Oroeco
The Oroeco app is a calculator-based design intended to raise awareness on the effect a single person can have on the climate. With this eco-friendly app, you can track your carbon footprint, along with your climate impact, by allowing it to analyze aspects of your lifestyle — from how much you travel to the foods you eat. Plus, it offers actionable tips along the way that helps you reduce your footprint and ultimately cut on your costs.
#7 WeDontHaveTime Climate Change
The WeDontHaveTime Climate Change app is a social media app that makes it easy to communicate with other climate activists and learn about eco-friendly actions you can take to better the earth. By being informed about global climate-related news, you can send climate actions to businesses and world leaders to come together and do the right thing. Oh, and guess what? This eco-friendly phone app is ad-free and runs on renewable energy.
#8 Waterprint
Just like you can measure your carbon footprint, so can you also measure your water footprint — with the Waterprint app! This useful eco-friendly phone app calculates how much water is used to create the clothes you wear, the food you eat and, of course, what you drink. But more importantly, it teaches you how to save water and make more sustainable choices.
#9 Carma Carpooling
Cut back on your carbon emissions the old-fashioned way and carpool. While you might have once had to carpool with fellow employees to work, this app makes it a heck of a lot easier! Carma Carpooling invites you to connect with local eco-friendly-minded people to ride together and travel toward the same destination. With this app, you can get in touch with other carpoolers, split the cost of transportation or fuel and drive together, saving the world from more greenhouse gases.
#10 iRecycle
Depending on your local legislature and town municipality laws, recycling might not be as easy as it should be. Even if it is relatively simple, there are often highly questionable household goods. For example, batteries and electronics often wind up in the landfill simply because recycling programs for these materials are inaccessible and hard to find. That’s where the iRecycle phone app offers assistance. Essentially, this app helps to locate nearby recycling centers for just about anything, from glass, paper, metal and even chemicals and old electronics.
#11 GreenChoice
From the harvesting of crops to the production and packaging of foods in single-waste plastics, the food industry is a massive contributor to climate change. But with products that offer misleading health claims and greenwashing, it’s hard to decipher the good companies from the bad. That’s where the GreenChoice app offers transparency like no other. Using a GreenScore rating system, this eco-friendly app allows you to scan and search 300,000 foods to learn more about their health and climate ratings. Not only that, but when you find something you like, you can order snacks and pantry staples straight from the app. Last, but not least, GreenChoice offsets the carbon footprint of your grocery shopping 1.5 to two times.
