Use Your Smartphone to Help Save The Environment

Over the past couple of decades, cell phones have gone from being a fancy gadget to a bare necessity that people all over the world need to have. Apart from being a mode of communication, they have also become our biggest source of information and entertainment. This along with the availability of smartphones in different price ranges, has increased their production and sale exponentially in the past few years. While this means great things for producers and well as consumers, there is a new problem: mobile towers and electronic waste. While those remain pertinent problems, what if we told you there are many ways in which your smartphone could actually help the environment? Surprised? Read on to find out how.

Air and water quality: The Visibility app for Android phones uses the phone camera to measure air pollution. The user has to take a photo of the sky which gets sent to a central system that compares the luminance value of the sky to pre-set benchmarks and gives results based on comparison. This app was created by University of Southern California’s Robotic Embedded Lab and has proved itself useful for people suffering from respiratory, particularly when they are travelling.

Scientific curiosity: If you are someone who is interested in the science of everyday things around us, your phone camera can help you gather more information about them. The LeafView Project is an iPhone app which lets you do exactly this. You can snap a picture of any plant that you find fascinating and with the help of this app, it will be transferred to a central database where they are catalogued for a worldwide plant census and database for future references.

E-coupons: Instead of buying physical gift cards for your friends and relatives, which would use paper or worse, plastic and eventually end up in a trashcan, you can digitally transfer them gift coupons that they can redeem on online purchases or retail stores of the same brand. By doing this, you will be giving the environment a gift as well: the gift of sustainability and responsible behaviour.

Saving Energy: If you want to do both the environment and your pocket a favour by using less power, your smartphone can help you do just that. Saving energy is now possible merely with the help of an app you need to download on your phone, for example VerdeEnergy and EnergySaver. These apps will track the energy consumption in your home as well as suggest changes to reduce energy consumption.

Saving wildlife: Organisations which are actively involved with saving wild animals use cell phones to track the GPS of these animals and share the location with farmers and residents who live near forests; so that they can be prepared for the animals and avoid any negative outcome of their interaction. One app that is actively practising this preventive measure in Africa is called Save the Elephants.

These are just some of the many ways smartphones can help save the environment. The future holds in store for us smart sensors which will collect and process environmental data wherever we go. About time you stopped feeling guilty about using your phone.