Recycling - There's an App for That!
By: Matthew Olan
I am one of those people who tries to recycle everything I can, just ask my wife about my obsessive recycling at home. Or ask my co-workers about my CD collection or my compressed air can collection at work. I have even been known to go as far as to break larger things down into their component parts so I can recycle them. (Like my old solar lights, or my wife’s old hair dryer) But the most frustrating thing about recycling is by far figuring out where to take my materials. I know it should be recycled but don’t always know where to take it.iRecycle uses your smartphone's GPS to determine the closest recycling centre.
Well it turns out my phone can help me do my recycling! This last weekend I stumbled on a cool app called “iRecycle”. It’s a free app that tells me where to take my junk. You simply type in what you are trying to recycle. Let’s say “Styrofoam” you then enter your location or let the app use the location services in your phone to automatically find your location and hit search. It does a quick search and returns you a list of places to take your junk to. The list is sorted so that it shows the closed recycling depots first and the farthest away last.
Once you have located a recycling depot for your item, you can click on it and the app will provide you with additional info, such as the hours of operation, phone number, website, and materials that they accept at that depot. The app will even show you where they are on Google maps and give you directions on how to get there if you aren’t sure where they are. Heck thanks to Google maps you can get walking directions and bus routes if you are really green.