What is Earth Day?
Earth Day has been celebrated for 45 years today. With the goal to build worldwide support for environmental protection and evoke real change, this modern movement is stronger than ever. Coordinated globally by the Earth Day Network, today is just one example of the hard work this network carries out. Earth Day, along with a variety of other environmental campaigns such as greening schools and promoting environmental education, accelerating the global green economy and the canopy project, has led to the networking making huge progress towards a greener future.
What can you do to help?
There are so many ways in which you can get involved in promoting a greener planet. From reducing your water and electricity usage to participating in a ‘bike to work’ scheme, there’s something for everyone.
With some 37.8 million people using smartphones in the UK this year, we’ve compiled a list of our top rated apps to help you learn more about the negative impact we're having on the Earth and to make positive changes to your lifestyle, wherever you are.
The Apps
1. EcoChallenge (Raureif) FREE
Learn how small changes can reduce your impact on the environment with this challenge based app. Each day brings a new topic with interesting facts and a related challenge to make a change.
'The world’s oceans contain 6 times more plastic than plankton'.
Every year, 6.4 billion tons of plastic fill our oceans. This is equal to 18,000 pieces of plastic per km².
Challenge 1: Don’t buy anything packaged in plastic at the supermarket!
(2,328 people have managed to do it... or cheated)
Challenge 2: Give your old plastic bags 3 new lives!
(3,755 people using this app have reused 10,450 plastic bags)
2. BrightNest (SmartHabitat Inc.) FREE
Choose your focus (green, healthy, savvy, handy or creative) and receive personalised tips to help you make lifestyle changes.
'Wash Your Clothes in Cold Water'
Time: 5 minutes
Difficulty level: 1/3
Advances in technology and detergents have made cold-water washing just as effective as hot-water cycles. Reduce the cost of your laundry by up to 90% by switching to cold water'.
A good balance: the app recommends using a hot-cycle for items such as bath towels which tend to carry more bacteria. What a clever little application!
3. Love Food Hate Waste (Waste & Resources Action Programme) FREE
Plan meals with the correct portion sizes for your family based on the number of adults and children in your home. Plan meals in your calendar, create shopping lists, rate recipes and reduce waste.
4. #climate (ClimateX) FREE
#climate enables the sharing of environmental causes with your Twitter and Facebook networks. Explore topics of interest to you, share campaigns and petition requests and gain insight into the level of impact your activity has on these issues.
5. iRecycle (Earth911, Inc.) FREE
The premiere application for finding local, convenient recycling areas. iRecycle provides access to more than 1,600,000 ways to recycle over 350 materials.
Tip: Your local supermarket should have a recycling point (e.g. TESCO, Sainsburys, ASDA etc.)
If you're interested to find out other ways you can facilitate this movement, visit www.50waystohelp.com.
Write a comment.