12 Best Eco Friendly Apps For Sustainble Living

I’ve wanted to do this blog post for a while and talk about the best eco friendly apps that are available for Android phones. Granted these sustainable apps will probably be available for most phones, however I have an Android phone so that’s my experience with these eco apps.

My current smartphone is a Motorola E6 Play, I bought this phone a little over a year ago refurbished on Ebay. In case you aren’t aware, refurbished and secondhand phones are the best purchase environmentally. I talk about this more in reduce environmental impact online.

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Best Eco Friendly Apps For Sustainable Living

There are quite a few apps that can help the environment by helping you live more sustainably in general. The below apps which should be available for Android and IPhone are some of the best eco friendly apps for sustainable living.

Depop

I feel like this eco app is pretty well known at this point. However, in case you aren’t aware of this app, Depop is an app specifically for vintage and secondhand clothes and shoes, It’s worth noting that similar to EBay you need to ensure that what you’re purchasing is secondhand as some sellers do bulk buy new clothing and sell them on Depop.

I have a preference for Rocket Dog shoes so last year I searched specifically for those shoes in my size and I managed to find two pairs that I’m really happy with. As they’re secondhand I’ve given a new lease of life to shoes that would otherwise have ended up in landfill and I’m happy because I like how colourful they are.

Ecosia

I think I mentioned Ecosia in a recent blog post entitled sustainable tips for busy and lazy people, however Ecosia is one of the best eco friendly apps as it’s an eco alternative to google search engine. This sustainable app and website is great because they plant trees for every search made. They use 100% renewable energy to power their data centres as well which is really cool.

I found the easiest way to remind me to use this one was to remove the Google app from my phone and put this one in it’s place. You can also get the Ecosia extension for Google Chrome on your computer.

Ethy

The Ethy app is relatively new as it was created in 2021, however this eco app is great for people in the UK. They have daily eco inspiration, blog posts and if you enter your location they tell you which eco friendly and sustainable shops are in your area. As it’s fairly new they may not be aware of all of the eco friendly shops so be sure to report any that you think they’ve missed. They do have over 1000 listed currently which is quite impressive.

You can also browse by category if you’re looking for specific products as well as they list brands with Ethy badges ie Vegan, reduced plastic etc.

Etsy

I’ve been a huge fan of Etsy for ages now. Not a lot of people know that this but this one of the best eco friendly apps as they offset the carbon for every purchase made. So not only do Etsy have a lot of wonderful handmade gifts for people and household items such as homemade soap etc, but they also offset the carbon as well.

If you’d like to learn more about what eco friendly products you can get from this sustainable app, be sure to check out my blog post.

Good On You

I mentioned this eco app in my recent blog post, how to quit fast fashion as I was really excited to come across it. Good On You is supported by the beautiful Emma Watson who has always been a huge advocate for sustainable and ethical fashion. This app is so easy to use, you can search individual brands to see how Good On You rates them. I have searched all of the main High street brands in the UK such as; Next, New Look, Topshop, Debenhams, Matalan and George and they rate all of them as Not Good Enough. Good On You considers how each brand impacts people, planet and animals. For each brand you can see the full description of why they give that rating as well. This is one of the best eco friendly apps that I’ve been using recently.

My Little Plastic Footprint

I really like this eco app, when you first sign up to My Little Plastic Footprint you put down plastic that you’ve already cut out, if any. You then have a list of plastic to cut out in your to-do list. As a lover of lists myself, I think this method of tracking your plastic is great. In the below screenshot, you’ll see that I’m planning on cutting out plastic bread bags, single use plastic plant pots and packets for growing.

If you click on the + symbol you can explore some of the other sections in the home and add other things to your to-do list from there as well.

My Plastic Diary

My Plastic Diary is such an interesting eco friendly app. This app is for recording your daily plastic use so a great way of virtually recording what you and your household uses on a daily, weekly or monthly basis. When you record a plastic item you put it the size and weight of the item and it will give you a plastic score based on the weight and type of plastic that it is. They do declare that some of the lighters plastics will be scored higher based on the fact that they’re more likely to end up in the ocean.

Since I collected my plastic for a week last year, I like to do regular checks of our household plastic to see what I can cut out and change so I love that this eco app was created to help assist with that.

Ocean Hero

Ocean Hero is another of the best eco friendly apps because this one is a search engine which uses the money made from advertisements to pay people in need to collect plastic, through a movement called Plastic Bank.

Plastic Bank has collection hubs in Indonesia, Haita and the Phillipines where collectors of plastic can be returned for money. The people living in these countries are living in extreme poverty where recycling of plastic is not a priority so the plastic ends up in the oceans and rivers in these areas. Plastic Bank is changing the infrastructure in these places to make it worthwhile for these people to collect the plastic and exchange it for money.

Olio

Olio is such an interesting sustainable app, I really geeked out when I found this one because I thought it was such a great idea. You basically input your location into this eco app and then it tells you if anyone in your local area is giving away any food or non food item that they do not need, for free. You can of course list items that you want to give away for free as well. The main purpose of this app is to fight against waste and to help your neighbours out as well.

With a similar idea to Gumtree or Craigslist but with items that you are gifting only. It’s genius and I wish I’d come up with this myself.

Plant Jammer

Plant Jammer is another one of the best eco friendly apps that I’ve discovered recently, with a focus on preventing food waste and cooking healthier dishes. When you first sign up to the app it asks you whether your focus is eating healthier or emptying your fridge etc. You can also put in your dietary preferences any allergies you have as well. The app gives you 10 free recipes from what I’ve seen.

Once you find a recipe that you want to try, you can adapt it with flavours that you want to use and it gives you step by step instructions on how to make it. Really great if you want to work on your cooking but you don’t know where to start.

Refill

I was advised about the Refill app after I did my video about eco apps so I thought I would add this app here. This app is aiming to prevent more plastic from ending up in the ocean by showing you where you can refill your water bottle. They do also inform you of any refill stations for coffee, takeaway and plastic free shopping which is really handy.

In the UK in 2019 they prevented 100 million plastic bottles from entering the waste stream. The same year 250,000 people downloaded the app which is awesome.

Too Good To Go

This app is another one of the best eco friendly apps that I’ve come across recently. Too Good To Go is mainly to prevent food waste from cafes, restaurants, takeaway shops and supermarkets etc. On the app you put in your location and it tells you if any establishments close to your have any surplus bundles of food that they are selling for an affordable price. Some of this food will be short dated and would otherwise be thrown away.

This is a great service for consumers to grab a bargain and for food companies to tackle their food waste problems. I’ve noticed a lot of businesses in my area in Somerset are all making use of this sustainable app so that makes me happy. I haven’t had the opportunity to try this app but I recommend it to everyone.

I hope you’ve liked my post about the 12 of the best eco friendly apps for sustainable living. Do let me know if you think I’ve missed any because I’m not a big technology person, so there may be some sustainable apps that I haven’t come across.

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