15 Apps To Help You Live A Greener Lifestyle

Most of us are striving to live a greener lifestyle, but it can be difficult. Many of our habits and daily practices can increase our carbon footprint, and we might not always know how to improve this. To help you and your family go greener these apps have got plenty of creative ideas and support.

1. Veggie Garden Planner

Growing your own vegetables is one of the best ways to go green around the home. Veggie Garden Planner can provide you with all the support you need, to grow your own vegetable garden. The app helps you to choose vegetables that will grow well together, you’ll find lots of info regarding the best, and the worst neighbouring plants. Using this app you’ll learn composting tips, vegetable care tips, crop rotations, planting distance and a whole lot more. With a lovely vegetable garden you’ll create a more sustainable home.

2. OLIO

With the help of the OLIO app you can create less waste, and share with your community. The app helps you to connect with your neighbors, so you can share free items, whether household products or food. There are also items available for purchase, from crafts to handmade foods. With the help of OLIO you can:

• Stay safe with the no-contact exchanges.
• Explore eco-friendly living goals.
• Get inspired and connect.
• Donate your spare items to support your neighbours.
• Sell your homemade stuff.

3. Ecosia

Ecosia is a technology company which helps you to do good when you use the Internet. All you have to do is use Ecosia as your browser, any profits made by the search engine are used to plant trees. The community plants trees in threatened biodiversity locations, millions are planted each month. One of the great things about Ecosia are the privacy settings, the search engine doesn’t save searches, track sites visited, or sell data. (All they care about are trees)!

4. Think Dirty

Using the Think Dirty app you can find out about the toxic ingredients inside your personal care products and cosmetics. All you have to do is scan in the barcode, and the app will let you know how clean and green that product is. Using the database you can scan 850,000 products, and receive a rating that’s simple to understand. Think Dirty provides information on health impacts, certifications, ingredients, and how eco-friendly your products are. Can’t find one of your fav products? All you have to do is scan in the barcode, and submit the product to Think Dirty. The team will get to work right away on giving this product a rating.

5. Oroeco 

The Oroeco app helps you to make more informed choices, monitor your carbon footprint, and save money. With the help of this app you can see how your daily habits contribute to global warming, whether it’s shopping, eating, home energy or driving.

The Oroeco app gives you personalized suggestions, to help you go greener and save yourself money along the way. Here there are lots of suggestions to support carbon offset schemes, and help protect the earth. The app helps you to inspire the community, with green competitions and collaborations. There are plenty of ways that you can go greener as a family whether it’s renewable energy and Solar Battery Storage or improving your recycling habits.

6. Forest

Forest is a productivity app which can help you to stop getting distracted by your phone, saving the planet in the process. Turn on the app, and plant a virtual seed in the forest, and the seed will start growing into a tree. Once you’ve planted the tree, start a task, whether it’s a work task, or a household chore. If you exit the Forest Screen to use your phone, the tree will die. The idea is to not check your phone, and to concentrate for the duration of the session. After the session is over, the tree will be fully grown. Once you’ve grown enough digital trees, you can trade these in to plant trees for real. Forest is partnered with ‘Trees For The Future’.

7 . Karma

Karma is a food waste application, helping users to buy surplus food items from grocery stores, cafes and restaurants, offering some great discounts. Karma works with over 2,000 restaurants, currently only available in the UK. Here you can buy some tasty foods from the likes of Detox Kitchen, Island Poke, Coco di Mama, Aubaine, Gentlemen Baristas and more.

So how exactly does Karma work? Firstly food outlets upload their produce to the app, usually between around 2 and 6pm. Simply choose the food you want, and then head to pick up your order. It’s simple to follow your favorite restaurants, grocery stores and cafes, so you can check when they have food available.

8. Fat Llama

Fat Llama is an app that helps you to rent your belongings to the people in your neighbourhood. The creators believe the ‘sharing is the future’, and they want to help people live greener lifestyles. With the help of the Fat Llama app it’s easy to borrow almost anything! The app allows you to borrow plenty of different items, whether it’s camper vans, lawn mowers or photography equipment. It’s really simple to use, just snap a picture, type a description and set the price.

9. Failing Fruit

Foraging means identifying, searching and gathering food from the wild. These foods could be mushrooms, nuts, herbs or fruits. Through the practice of foraging you can explore the great outdoors, live a more sustainable lifestyle, and learn about wild foods. 

Falling Fruit is an app that helps you to find edible fruit and go foraging around the USA. Here you’ll find some great foraging maps, tree inventories, and thousands of fruits. For a unique way to go greener, try learning more about foraging.

10. DropCountr

The DropCountr app helps users to link up their water utilities to the app, and monitor their usage. The app can support you to:

• Make sense of your water usage, and plan to make savings.
• Make comparisons between your water usage and that of your neighbours.
• Create water usage goals to go greener.
• Get utility announcements or potential rebates.
• Save money by reducing water usage for your household.

11. Wallapop

Many of us tend to accumulate items that we don’t use or want, whether it’s homeware, kids toys, clothing or furniture. With the help of the Wallapop app you can sell all your old stuff, creating less waste and making money. The app is easy to use, just take a picture on your phone, write the description, and post it on Wallapop. A few features of the app include:

• A wide range of categories including sports and leisure, fashion, technology, motor, childrens, home, video games, and more.
• Filters to narrow down your search, including brands, sizes, locations etc.
• Sell or buy in your neighbourhood or use the shipping system for further afield locations.

12. iRecycle

The iRecycle app can help you contribute to a greener and cleaner world. The creators are on a mission to improve recycling rates in the U.S, helping people to recycle everything correctly. Here you can browse the materials that you want to recycle, and find out exactly how to do so. The app offers connections via websites, contact numbers and locations, to thousands of recycling programs. iRecycle also provides plenty of content about going green, recycling based products, and advice on sustainable living.

13. Freecycle + trash nothing

Freecycle + trashing nothing can help you offer or pick up free goods in your neighbourhood. Here you can give away or gain many items including building materials, electronics, books, clothes, furniture and more. Waste is generated so easily when people over purchase or do not practice mindful shopping habits. With the help of apps like this, it’s easy to ensure that nothing goes to waste in your community. Ensure that you comply with contactless pick up, to comply with the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.

14. Good On You

The Good On You app helps you to get sustainability ratings on clothing and fashion brands. Here you can browse thousands of brands, the app gives all brands a sustainability rating out of five. A five star rating means that brand is ‘Great’, sustainability wise. Brands with Ratings of one star are labeled as ‘We Avoid’. Every fashion company is rated based on their impact on animals, people and the planet. 

Can’t find the clothing brand you love? Simply submit to the app to get a score in no time. If you discover that a product isn’t very green or ethically produced, Good On You can help you to find an alternative. As well as brand ratings here you can access plenty of articles and tips on sustainable fashion.

15. Care For Our World 

This is an app which was designed to help young children to learn about the importance of protecting the planet. It’s an app adaptation of the children’s book of the same name. To help your children to learn about loving the planet, this is a beautiful app and book.

With the help of these tools you can create a green roadmap to help you and your family protect the planet.