Green Living Hacks: Mobile Apps to Help Embrace an Eco-Friendly Lifestyle

Most people use their phones to accomplish numerous tasks in today's day and age. We use phone apps for almost anything, from ordering food to buying or selling clothes. There's a mobile app for nearly everything! Would you be surprised if I told you there were a few apps you could download on your phone right now that could improve your sustainable living game? Let's take a look at them.

Too Good To Go

Too Good To Go logo from https://www.toogoodtogo.com/en-us & https://www.toogoodtogo.com/en-us/about-us.

Do you ever think about all the leftover food from a restaurant or cafe and wonder what the business does with it at the end of the night? Well, I hate to break it to you, but they throw most of it out. If you're like me, you hate the idea of so much good food going to waste. That is why the first app we are looking into is one that works to eliminate excessive food waste in restaurants, grocery stores, cafes, and more! This special app is called Too Good To Go. It works by allowing its users to discover different types of food business locations near them that participate in the Too Good To Go initiative and have food pick orders available. The customer gets to choose a "Surprise Bag..filled with tasty, unsold food" (Too Good to Go, n.d.) from their chosen location, which is usefully sold at discounted prices. The customer then decides on a pre-set pickup time that the location sets to pick up their surprise bag!

This app and idea is a great way to help reduce and combat food waste in your local area. Not only will using the app help you get a surprise bag of goodies from the local food businesses that currently partner with Too Good To Go but as more people use the app, more businesses will become aware of the opportunity. This will hopefully lead to more businesses hopping on the app. This means more food options for us all and less going to waste!

Good On You

Good On You logo from https://goodonyou.eco/.

The next app that I'm highlighting is a sustainable clothing brand review app called Good On You. This app allows shoppers to review certain clothing brands and companies and how sustainable and ethical their practices are. There are over 3,000 brands listed on the app. The app assesses a brand's human, planet, and animal impact (Good on You, n.d.). The app uses a rating system to review the brands. The rating system ranks from 1-5, (1) being "We Avoid" to (5) being "Great" (Good on You, n.d.). Additionally, if a brand that you like is not as sustainable as you'd hope, the app can offer you sustainable alternatives. Shoppers can also send messages to brands that they believe should partake in more sustainable practices and express their concerns about a brand's sustainability or ethical issues.

This app is a great way to ensure that you are shopping for fashion from brands and organizations that believe in the importance of focusing on sustainable efforts. There are a lot of popular fashion brands that are listed on the app, and it is fast and easy to use. This makes it easy to decide which brands to shop from when you're out on a shopping trip with your friends! You can even use it to help them decide which items to purchase. It is important that, as consumers, we make smart and considerate purchasing decisions. Good On You can help you do just that.

NatureHub

NatureHub logo from https://blog.naturehub.com/ & https://naturehub.com/.

The NatureHub app is just as it sounds. A safe hub or space for people to come together to share sustainable living ideas, local businesses, and many more. The app can also be used for people to share sustainable, natural alternatives to certain products and recipes for others to try. My favorite aspect of the app is all of the different ways that people tap into their creativity to come up with sustainable and healthy cooking/baking recipes. Users can also shop from brands that are sustainable and focused on being eco-friendly on the NatureHub Marketplace (NatureHub, n.d.). This app lets people from all over come together to help one another live more sustainable lives. If you are looking to form an environmental-focused community, give NatureHub a try!

Overall, I hope that you guys can come to love these apps after trying them out yourselves. I have them downloaded on my phone and look forward to using them to help better my sustainable living journey. Let me know what you think about any of the apps if you try them out! Let's all take this small but effective step towards giving back and taking care of our planet.

-Symphony