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Want to live a greener life? These free apps all make it easier to make greener, healthier choices every day. Visit the app store now and turn your phone into an eco-machine!
Buy The Most Eco-Friendly Home, Baby & Beauty Products – The GoodGuide
One of the more well-known apps for living a healthier life, the GoodGuide app has been featured in the NY Times, Oprah Magazine and TechCrunch and for good reason: GoodGuide has rated over 210, 000 consumer products in many categories including skin care items, pet food, and baby products. Products are rated out of 10 on three different axes: impact to health, environment impact and societal impact. An average score of the three ratings is then calculated. GoodGuide also provides product certifications, comprehensive list of ingredients and alternative choices with better scores. Consumers can easily compare products while shopping and make greener choices. The app is incredibly easy to use- items can be searched in a few seconds by name, by category, or even by scanning the barcode. The only downside is the app covers mostly US products but Green Queen is hopeful changes soon. Download it here.
Rate Your Skincare – Skin Deep by Environmental Working Group (EWG)
With a specific focus on personal care products, Skin Deep has a database of over 80, 000 products, making it a great app for folks whose medicine cabinets are overflowing- spring clean your way to greener body care. You can use the ‘scan a barcode’ feature to search for a product- and for ease of reference, results can either be sorted alphabetically or from worst to best score. Each product rating contains a numerical and color coded score, as well as specific health concerns relating to cancer, child development and allergies- with low, moderate and high concern warnings. The app also provides a list of all hazardous ingredients found in each product. Download it here.
Make Sustainable Seafood Choices – Seafood Watch By Monterey Bay Aquarium
As we all know, all fish choices are not created equal. To help navigate the murky waters of buying seafood, the Monterey Bay Aquarium has released the Seafood Watch app. The app guides consumers on what the most conservation-friendly fish choices are. The Monterey Bay Aquarium has three ratings: Best Choice: healthy fish stock, Good Alternative: choose if not Best Choice options, and Avoid: fish stocks severely depleted (and for which the app provides safe alternatives). For Japanese cuisine lovers, there is also a handy sushi-specific guide- with Japanese names no less! Download it here.
Calculate Your Carbon Footprint – Zero Carbon
Ever wondered what your carbon footprint is? Zero Carbon makes it super easy to do so. The app uses data such as where you live, your gas and electricity consumption, and how much you travel to calculate your total footprint. The app also shares tips to help you reduce your carbon footprint as much as possible. For those who are struggling to reduce their yearly air travel and other carbon heavy activities, the app makes it easy to buy carbon offsets with the push of a button. The app also has a social component: you can raise awareness about carbon footprint and get your family & friends involved by sharing your results on Facebook. Download it here.
Raise a Happy & Safe Child – Healthy Child Healthy World Pocket Guides
With 11 different curated, quick reference guides covering various topics from baby formula to safe plastics to sunscreen, Healthy Child Healthy World Pocket Guides will save you from hours of product googling mid-shopping trip. Each guide focuses on providing the most important information for each topic in an easy to understand format. The guides also contains a Label Lingo section, which covers common ingredients to avoid and Healthy Child Healthy World recommended green brands. The DIY section contains simple recipes and easy tips to help you create a greener world for your tyke. Finally, the resources section is a handy guide for finding more detailed information and research on a subject. Download it here.
All the apps listed above are available on both the Android and iOs platforms, except for Zero Carbon- try the Android alternative Carbon Footprint Calculator instead. All images courtesy of the iTunes app store.
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