5 Must-Have Apps For the Eco-Conscious Shopper

This is a guest post by Garret Stembridge.

So you’re shopping for salad ingredients when you remember that your sister recently mentioned spinach could be high in pesticides. Wait, was it spinach or was it cabbage? Better go with the box labeled Certified Organic, just to be safe. But how environmentally conscious is that packaging?

You could spend half your day scrolling through pages of Internet search results, but who has the patience for that while standing in the fresh produce aisle?

Even when time is of the essence, you don’t have to sacrifice your eco sensibilities. Check out these five, *free* smartphone applications that bridge the gap between real life and the virtual information highway to make you the savviest shopper on the block.

• GoodGuide

  Don’t tell your four-year-old, but the GoodGuide app could be the best shopping buddy you’ve ever had. With over 170,000 catalogued food, personal and household products, this app will scan the barcode of an item and give you the scoop. GoodGuide displays an overall product rating of 1-10, followed by ratings for your next three specified priorities with categories like nutritional value, safe and healthy ingredients, animal welfare, human rights, climate change and energy efficiency. The app also lists suggestions for similar products.

• Dirty Dozen

  This handy pesticide guide from the Environmental Working Group is straight to the point and helps you avoid common pesticide residue in your produce. (Chemicals can linger even after washing and peeling.) Last updated for 2013, the Dirty Dozen app offers a shopping list of the “dirtiest” produce items* and a safe list of the “Clean 15” — a great shortcut when deciding which foods should be the organic priority.

  *This list is now actually 14 items including kale/collard greens and summer squash. Admittedly, the title “Obscene Fourteen” may be a bit deterring.

• Fooducate - Gluten and Allergies
  

  While still offering the features of the original Fooducate app — like calorie counting and tracking weight loss progress — the Gluten and Allergy version (not free) gets down to the nitty-gritty for peeps with specific dietary restrictions. Since labels can be confusing and often include alternative wording, Fooducate attempts to simplify the information with ratings and pass/fail criteria to keep you safe while offering gluten-free, allergy-free or non-GMO alternatives.

• Locavore

  Local farms and farmers markets rarely advertise, so how do people find them? Using your smartphone’s GPS, Locavore pinpoints the nearest farms, farmers markets and co-ops instantly. Learn what’s in season or soon to be harvested, then get recipes for what you’ve picked up. Detailed information on your friendly local farmers and markets is also listed, as well as a social networking platform so that you can post a selfie of your colorful bounty packed into the wicker basket on the front of your bike.

• iRecycle

  Now that you have the tools to make informed purchases, what about a more informed waste disposal? Complete the green circle of life with the iRecycle app, which boasts that it can assist you in recycling more than 350 materials in 1,600,000 ways. What types of plastics go where? What about that old flip phone with no capabilities to run all these handy new applications? iRecycle uses your GPS to suggest local dropoff points for your recycling convenience.

What other apps have you used to help make eco conscious shopping decisions?

About the Author: Garret Stembridge is part of the team at Extra Space Storage, a leading provider of self-storage facilities. Garret often writes about sustainable practices for homes and for businesses. Many Extra Space Storage locations, including several in Brooklyn, have been retrofitted to reduce energy consumption.

This post is featured on Works for Me Wednesday and Tuesday Greens.