There’s no surprise Apple and Android devices were big sellers this holiday season. Apple sold over 7 million iPads during the holidays and that’s not including iPhone’s or iPods.  If you were one of the many who took the technology plunge on Black Friday or any time during the holiday season, there are hundreds of thousands of apps for your every need.  On Christmas day more than 15 million apps were downloaded between 7 and 9 p.m. alone, if you line up all the worlds time zones.

More and more green living apps are popping up to help you minimize your impact on the earth.

Here are six eco-friendly apps to get you started and make your world a little greener.

Seafood Watch

Cost: FREE

The Seafood Watch app allows you to sort seafood by “Best Choice,” “Good Alternative” or “Avoid” rankings. The app also highlights a list of “Super Green” seafood that’s good for you and the oceans. There are additional features like a glossary, links to seafood recipes and news, and other things of interest to all seafood lovers. The app also allows you to share the locations of restaurants and markets where you’ve found sustainable seafood.

Green Fuel

Cost: $1.99

Green Fuel locates alternative fueling stations across the U.S., searchable by location and fuel type. The app provides each station’s address, phone number, gas type, nozzle type and location via Google maps.

Locavore

Cost: FREE

Looking for the closest farmers market? Or the closest farm selling your favorite produce? Locavore is a great app for those looking for local, in season, organic foods in your area. The app has one-click access to thousands of healthy, seasonal recipes and other information that can be shared with your friends and family.

GoodGuide

Cost: FREE

The GoodGuide mobile app makes it fast and easy to find safe, healthy, green, and ethical products, instantly delivering the information you need, when you need it most — in a store and on the go. Scan the barcode of a product and discover information on how green the product is. Very cool app.

Go Green

Cost: FREE

How Green are you? Are you part of the solution or are you part of the problem? Get this app and get collectible green tips that are saved to your green list. You get a new green tip each time you visit the app. Your green status also changes as you earn more green tips.

Fooducate

Cost: FREE /version without adds is $2.99

This app empowers food shoppers everywhere to make healthy, informed decisions while at the supermarket. Scan your food and Fooducate generates a letter grade (A, B, C, or D) for each product scanned, along with brief explanations and warnings about its nutrients and ingredients. There is also an option to enter the bar code manually. The app then makes suggestions for healthier alternatives.

Do you have any other green, eco-friendly apps to suggest?

Looking at the latest and greatest in green inventions, not only are they are pretty cool but they can also help reduce your carbon footprint.  Green inventions and clean technologies are popping up everywhere because inventors know that going green is good business.

There are so many to choose from, each attempting to make your life a bit simpler and a bit greener.  Not all will make it big-just a few of the many will catch on and go viral.

Hop on over to Eco Snobbery Sucks and take a look at my pick of 5 green inventions that are poised to go viral.

Let me know if you think any of the five have what it takes to make it big. I’ll let you know which is my favorite.

[ photo used under Creative Commons from O Palsson /Flickr]

Photo used under Creative Commons from Gary and Anna Satler

A Simple Way to Save Some Energy

Did you know that refrigerators and freezers use about a sixth of all electricity in a typical home – that is more electricity than any other single household appliance. Thankfully, over past years refrigerators have become more energy-efficient. Today’s refrigerators use about 60 percent less electricity on average than  pre-1993 models.

Once you opt to buy a new, energy-efficient fridge you have to decide what to do with that old, energy-wasting second refrigerator. National Grid launched a Refrigerator/Freezer Recycling Program in Upstate New York where they will pay customers $30 plus free pickup of old, energy wasting second refrigerators and freezers. This program is not yet available throughout the country, but many local appliance shops have a recycling program in place-you will need to check in with a shop in your area.

Many of us are choosing to hold onto those old fridges and using them in garages or basements. According to the US Department of Energy, about 26 percent of homes have a second refrigerator-that’s a pretty big number! Seems like an OK thing to do…….it’s nice to have the extra space for drinks and extra food. But there is a big downside to this.

If you have a pre- 1993 fridge, here are some interesting facts:

• If you ditch your pre-1993 fridge, you’ll save enough on energy costs to buy coffee for nearly 80 days.
• If every American home replaced its pre-1993 fridge with an Energy Star model, we would prevent annual greenhouse gas emissions equivalent to those of more than 8.3 million cars.
• Unplug your second fridge and save $100 to $200 on your annual energy bill.

Unplugging an old refrigerator or freezer is a simple way to reduce your impact on the environment-it benefits the planet, your wallet and energy conservation efforts.

Do you have a second fridge or freezer?  Are you willing to unplug?

HP Monster Digital PowerCenter 800G

Technorati claim code 6JGJJPAB5JV6

Have you heard of vampire power? Don’t get too excited-I’m not talking the Twilight Series.  Vampire power is the energy sucked out by plugged-in appliances that are on standby mode or  turned off.  Many small appliances made today continue to draw power, even when they are switched off. Nearly 20 percent of the electricity used by appliances is lost while they are sitting in the standby mode, waiting to be used.

According to a Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory report, “A typical American home has forty products constantly drawing power. Together these amount to almost 10 percent of residential electricity use.”  That’s money right out of your pocket.

Do you leave your computer screen saver on all day?  Phone chargers plugged in? iPod chargers? I just walked around my house and took a quick inventory-electric toothbrushes, chargers that weren’t charging anything, televisions, so many things plugged in that were not in use.

Green Surge Protector to the Rescue

If walking around unplugging every item that is not in use seems like a big job-no worries-a new type of green surge protector has come to the rescue.  It allows you to shut down outlets with the flick a switch. Look at the time you will save- with a surge protector you can now shut down all of your plugged in devices at once instead of unplugging each, one at a time.

TrickleStar PC TrickleStrip

How  is this different than a standard surge protector?

These green power strips are able to ‘sense’ the flow of electrical current through the strip’s control outlet. This unique feature enables the surge protector to turn off selected equipment when not in use, saving you money.

A small electronic device inside the surge protector monitors the current on a single outlet. If, for example, your computer is plugged into that single outlet-when the computer is finished shutting down, the current draw from the computer drops to its idle current and the surge protector senses the current change, automatically shutting off all of the computer peripherals.

Time to get one, or two or three-What to buy?

PC World Magazine reviewed green surge protectors and suggested these three:

Belkin Surge Protector

1. Belkin Conserve Smart AV Power Strip-about $30
2. HP MonsterDigital PowerCenter800G - runs about $60
3. TrickleStar TrickleStrip -about $30

Bottom line: make sure you don’t leave all those appliances on. It just adds up to a lot of wasted energy. A simple way to save money and reduce your carbon emissions is by taking the time to turn off these appliances and devices when not in use. A surge protector will make that job much simpler.

Sources:

PC World

Greenhome.com