If you’re eco-conscious and wondering how green those items at the store really are, well.. Now there’s an app for that.
GoodGuide, the product green rating site, has developed an iPhone app that uses your phone’s camera to scan the barcodes on items at the store and then retrieve their green creds for you. The information is based on company practices, the product’s production cycle, and other information.
The information is said to be independent, scientific, and based on health and wellness as well as environmental data. Products are given a rating from 1-10 in (appropriately) green dots under the product’s match information. GoodGuide boasts a database of over 50,000 products so far, with more added daily.
Ratings are delivered with an overall and three categories, depending on the product type. Food items will have health matches, for instance, while household cleansers would have environmental and toxicity ratings. GoodGuide also tracks what is being scanned so that those products scanned most often without a match are put higher on the list to be rated next.
The app is available for free from the iTunes Store. It uses Occipitat’s RedLaser barcode scanning technology, which integrates with the iPhone’s camera, and the GoodGuide online database of product information.
