I Tried the Most Popular Eco & Ethical Apps: Here's What Worked

elvicheva

In 2025, saving the planet isn't just about protests, it's about what’s in your fridge, your closet, and even your skincare routine. In this video, I test out apps and platforms that help you live more consciously, ethically, and sustainably with minimal effort.  We dive into: 📱 BrandSnap – scan a product and find out if it's made in the EU or made by a megacorp (https://brandsnap.app.link/elvi) 💸 Youro – the platform that has gathered the best European brands 👗 Vinted – secondhand fashion without the funky thrift store smell 🍎 TooGoodToGo – for rescuing food like a superhero 🥫 Olio – share leftovers and pantry finds 🌱 Giki Zero – calculate and cut your carbon footprint 🎯 Ailuna – set sustainability challenges 🍍 Yuka – scan food and cosmetics for health risks  ✨ BONUS CONTENT: If you're a Patreon supporter or a YouTube Premium subscriber, you get access to exclusive extra footage where I test even more apps, including some weird, brilliant, and unexpectedly wholesome ones.  📲 Download the BrandSnap app: https://brandsnap.app.link/elvi  👉 Subscribe if you like this kind of content, I’m on the road to 5k subscribers and every click gets us one step closer to dismantling late-stage capitalism (okay maybe just the algorithm, for now).  🎵 Music: Voicy, Canva ✨ Support me on Patreon: patreon.com/ElviCheva 📩 Inquiries & Collabs: elvicheva@proton.me 📌 Find me here: Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/elvinanana.b... Instagram:   / elvicheva   Dailymotion: https://www.dailymotion.com/elvicheva  #Sustainability #EthicalTech #ConsciousConsumerism #EcoApps #DigitalMinimalism #BrandSnap #TooGoodToGo #Yuka #Vinted #ClimateAction #GoEuropean #Ailuna #EcoFriendly #Thrifting #Community

Transcript

00:00Hey everyone! Today we're diving headfirst into the world of ethical and sustainable apps,

00:05aka tools that will help us be slightly less terrible in our daily lives. Because if you're

00:10like me and you're trying to make more conscious choices in your daily life about what to consume,

00:15how to engage with your local community and how to sneak little acts of activism here and there

00:20without feeling too overwhelmed, then this one's for you. So grab your reusable bottle, get comfy

00:27and let's look at apps and platforms that will help us to identify local or European businesses,

00:33reduce food waste, engage with our neighborhood, identify health risks in products and maybe,

00:39just maybe, make late-stage capitalism slightly more sufferable. First, we have a very exciting app that

00:45I've been burning to talk about. It was recently launched with the help of Go European and it's

00:52Brand Snap. Brand Snap is like Shazam for conscious shopping. You scan a product with or without a

00:58barcode and it instantly shows you whether it's European or not. And if it's not, it will instantly

01:04recommend to you European alternatives. It works for food, cosmetics, fashion, electronics and so

01:10many other categories. And it also includes a searchable database of European brands. You can

01:15save favorites, share your finds and support the Go European movement. And there are different reasons for

01:21going European. First of all, European products are held to higher environmental, labor and privacy

01:26standards. And most importantly, supporting local producers will help to reduce carbon emissions from

01:32shipping and break down monopolies. According to the European Commission, 70% of EU consumers trust that

01:39their consumer rights are respected by traders. That's just a way to say that a lot of people trust that

01:45they won't get poisoned by a shampoo produced in France. And it's not just about safety, it's also a

01:50political thing. A lot of consumers in the world are opting to buy local or European. It means the

01:55trade tensions with the US and all the scandals that are happening there, whether it's because

02:00of quality, ethics or just not wanting to give your money to companies that engage in a lot of

02:06controversies. So I definitely recommend you to download Brand Snap. There's a link in the description

02:11or in the comments. And while you're doing it, let's watch a little video of me doing an investigation.

02:16So today is a very exciting day because I'm going out into the wild to do a little investigation.

02:22I'm going to scan different products to find out whether they are European, whether they are sustainable,

02:28whether they are ethically produced and if they contain hazardous ingredients. So let's find out.

02:35First, I'm going to head towards TK Maxx. It's not a place where I would usually go. Honestly,

02:39I haven't been there in such a long time because I try to buy most of my products secondhand. But for the sake

02:46of this video, I thought it would be a perfect place because it has a wide variety of different

02:49products from different countries. It has clothing, it has electronics, personal care products,

02:55so it will be perfect for all of our different apps that we're going to test today.

03:01Oh, squirrel! I was actually quite surprised with how well Brand Snap was able to identify

03:08brands on the photos that I was taking because sometimes it was quite hard to take a clear photo or

03:14to have the brand clearly in focus on the photos. So it worked really well.

03:21Yeah, I was definitely pleasantly surprised with how many brands it recognized instantly. It was

03:25super easy to use, very satisfying and I will definitely continue using it in my daily life.

03:31Next, we have another really exciting platform that I learned about through Go European.

03:35It's Euro. Euro is an online ethical marketplace where every product goes through a thorough

03:42sustainability background check. It means fair labor, low environmental impact and none of that

03:47greenwashing nonsense where the tag says eco but it was produced by a six-year-old under a bridge and

03:54then I'm flown in on a private jet. Nowadays, online marketplaces are dominated by players like Amazon or

04:00Timu that could not care less about ethics or sustainability. And whether you order something from

04:06Amazon, a US company or Timu, a Chinese company, it still comes from the same Chinese factory with

04:13very low labor standards and absolutely terrifying environmental impact. That's why we as consumers

04:19should make the conscious choice to go for marketplaces like Euro that feature fashion, skincare,

04:25home goods, pet products. It's perfect for people that want to shop consciously without having to

04:31research the supply chain of a product like they're preparing for a UN summit. And fun fact, according

04:38to the fashion transparency index, on average fashion brands score just 24% on transparency and nearly a

04:45third are so secretive they score less than 10%. And what's even crazy is that 85% of brands don't tell

04:52you how much they produce each year, fueling the global clothing waste crisis. And almost all of them,

04:59a whopping 96% won't say how many workers in their supply chain actually get paid a living wage.

05:05So whenever you have to buy something new, you can just go on Euro and browse calmly, knowing for

05:10sure that your products weren't made by exploited workers or sad factory fumes. I really like the

05:16minimalist design of the website. And just like it promises, it's very transparent. And for example,

05:21we have this brand called Watt. They have detailed product and brand description. Actually, each brand

05:28gets to introduce themselves to the buyers so that you know the stories behind each piece. And I love

05:34that concept very much. For example, this brand, you can see that it's designed in Germany and then produced

05:40in Portugal and Italy. You get the information about the company, the production process, the materials,

05:48and they have a very fair shipping and returns policies. They really have a wide variety of

05:54products. For example, this handmade section has key chains, cable things, watercolor paints that are

06:03all produced sustainably. Of course, the prices will be a little bit higher. But I think at this point,

06:08we all know that ethical and sustainable production of anything requires more time and more resources.

06:15And hence, it is a little bit more expensive. And apparently, the platform is still growing. They

06:20will add more and more choices in the future. But of course, it has to come also with consumer demand.

06:26So definitely support Hero. But then you might not even need to buy a new product because a lot of

06:32things that we need in our daily lives can be bought secondhand. And that's where Vinted comes in.

06:38Vinted is a peer-to-peer secondhand fashion app where you can buy and sell clothes you no longer need.

06:44It's like thrifting but from your phone and you don't even have to endure the tedious process of

06:49working around a huge thrift store trying to find something you like. I've been using Vinted for years

06:54and lately it's been my main source of acquiring any new clothing because I'm a huge proponent of thrifting.

07:02Whenever I put together new outfits, it always gives me so much pleasure before going out to

07:07tell myself, oh, I thrifted this pants and I thrifted this top and I thrifted my shoes. And most of the

07:12times it is from Vinted. And it's not only buying things from Vinted but also selling your old stuff

07:19that you might not be using or maybe it doesn't fit you anymore. It's about giving second life to things.

07:25You might ask, why does it matter? Well, the fashion industry is the second largest industrial

07:32polluter accounting for about 10% of global pollution, ranking higher than emissions from

07:37air travel and maritime transport combined. According to the European Environment Agency, in 2020,

07:44textile consumption per person in the EU required an average of 400 square meters of land, 9 cubic meters of

07:52water and 391 kilograms of raw materials and cause the carbon footprint of about 270 kilograms.

08:02And moreover, in the realm of thrifting, more than 500 billion dollars are lost every year due

08:08to lack of recycling and clothing utilization. And less than half of used clothes are collected for

08:14reuse or recycling. Only one percent of used clothes are recycled into new clothes, since technologies that

08:20would enable clothes to be recycled into virgin fibers are only now starting to emerge. So using Vinted,

08:27Depop, eBay, if you're in Germany, Kleinenzeigen means that less clothes will end up in landfills,

08:33you will have more money in your pockets, and will have to endure fewer fast fashion hauls on TikTok.

08:39Let me show you what I got and what I sold on Vinted, preparing for summer.

08:50While reorganizing my closet, I noticed that there were a lot of tops that I haven't been wearing for

08:55years now, and I could definitely get rid of them without any guilt. They were still in great condition,

09:00and now other people can give them some love that they haven't been getting from me for

09:05so much time. And then I needed some new sneakers, so I just recently thrifted this Converse,

09:11and a really cute fairy top that I will never stop wearing.

09:20Okay, I'll stop ranting about it and let's move on to the next app, which is Too Good To Go. You may

09:25have heard of it, it's a genius concept. Too Good To Go lets you rescue unsolved food from local cafes,

09:32bakeries, and restaurants at the end of the day. And not only at the end of the day, by the way.

09:37And you get a discounted surprise bag to avoid food waste and let the planet breathe a tiny sigh of

09:44relief. Here are some food waste stats that you have to know, and they will definitely inspire you to

09:49run to use Too Good To Go. In 2022, the world wasted an estimated of 1 billion tons of food, which is

09:57132 kilograms per person. 90% of food available to consumers was wasted at the retail, food service,

10:06and household levels. According to FAO, around half of the wasted food in the world is fruits and

10:12vegetables, including roots and tubers, followed by fish, seafood, and cereal products. And here's the

10:19worst thing that we cannot ignore. Food waste contributes 8-10% of global greenhouse gas emissions.

10:27Almost 10%. But we can go even further. The entire food system, from farm to fork to landfill,

10:34is actually the single biggest global emitter of greenhouse gases. Bigger than transport, bigger than

10:41energy. Yet it always somehow gets ignored in major climate talks like COP.

10:49So yeah, buying discounted pastries from Too Good To Go is basically an act of heroism, and honestly,

10:55we all should do it more. But it also has to be combined with a very conscious use of food products

11:00at home when you cook. In these cases, I always think of my grandma who never wastes a leaf from a

11:07vegetable. She always knows how to make something delicious out of every part of a food or a

11:11vegetable, whether it's dried watermelon skin for snacks or some other delicious stuff. But let's take

11:17a look at what I got on Too Good To Go. I just realized that the place that I chose for Too Good To Go

11:24is in front of my old office, and I used to go there all the time. They have really good fresh and delicious

11:29vegetables and fruits, and I used to chit chat with them sometimes. So I'm actually super excited. It's

11:34crazy that I didn't recognize it when I chose the place. But now I'm gonna go there and say hi to

11:39everyone. Very happy. And also, by the way, I'm not sure if I'll be able to film everything. First of all,

11:45I want to respect their privacy. And second of all, yeah, I'm not sure I'm there yet as a YouTuber.

11:51Give me some time. And now I'm going straight to my Too Good To Go order. So let's see how it goes.

11:58The weather in Berlin is a bit cold. I'm in an autumn jacket, but still very nice to walk around.

12:06It was definitely a success with Too Good To Go. I got a bag of fresh, completely fine vegetables that

12:12I can cook now. Also reconnected with the people that work there. And yeah, it was overall a beautiful

12:20experience. I'll definitely go for it again. And another point is that with this, I also supported

12:25local farmers. So it's a lot of wins today. Very happy. While I was walking in this park on the way

12:32home, I think I got pooped on. Now I can do a little Too Good To Go haul. First, I got this salad.

12:37So beautiful. Look at it, like a flower. And I got these peppers. I actually don't cook a lot of

12:43peppers. So I'm excited to see what I can do with it. One of my favorite hobbies lately is to go to the

12:52farmer's market and pick up vegetables that I have never cooked with. And then I search for recipes

12:57with them. And it's always something so exciting. It usually turns out really good if you follow the

13:01recipe. So we're excited for this. Then I got a lot of carrots, a courgette, and of course the star of

13:08the show, this beautiful cauliflower. Look how gorgeous it is. Absolutely magnificent. Got two potatoes.

13:15And this little beauty. Is this a pepper? I'm actually not sure, but I think it is. And as a beautiful gift,

13:22I got this fruit. I also wanted some strawberries on top of my Too Good To Go order. Also got these

13:27gorgeous strawberries. They smell divine. The only thing I wasn't super happy about is that they gave

13:32it to me in a plastic bag. And even though I had brought my own reusable bag, I couldn't ask them

13:38to put everything now in my own bag. I don't know if it's just me, but whenever I have a plastic bag in

13:44my hand, I feel like I'm doing something terrible to the planet. So I didn't enjoy that.

13:50Shameful. Shameful. I used to live in Rome. I also have spent quite some time in Paris.

13:57And I noticed that Italy and France has a slightly better Too Good To Go experience than Germany.

14:03But I'm still really enjoying what Berlin has to offer. You can always get some delicious bread or

14:10pastries, which is the most common, meals from restaurants or groceries, which I had never

14:16tried before. So I'm really happy that I got to try it in this video. And now I think I'll always try

14:21to get my groceries this way, at least most of the time. So if you're feeling inspired to use Too Good

14:26To Go after watching this video, or you've already done it this week, then go King or Quinn.

14:32You did an amazing job. You're saving the planet. A quick little interruption. If you're enjoying

14:38this video, you've learned a thing or two, or you've added one of these apps already to your phone,

14:44then definitely hit that subscribe button. I love making this content for you guys,

14:50and your support enables me to continue doing it. Oh, and if you want to see even more content like this

14:55that didn't make into this video, because it would be otherwise too long, definitely make sure to check out

15:00my Patreon or YouTube Premium for extra footage. I just uploaded a little bonus episode with more

15:06interesting apps. Okay, now back to saving the planet. Next we have karma. It's similar to Too Good

15:13To Go, but karma lets you see exactly what food you're getting before you buy it. There's no mystery box,

15:19no surprise seafood salad when you're vegetarian. So it's great for picky eaters, allergy fox, and control

15:26freaks. Unfortunately though, I wasn't able to test karma at all because it's a Swedish startup that is

15:33currently in the UK, also in France, some other countries, but it's not available in Germany. So

15:40it's very sad, but they're still available in 225 cities. So if you're one of the lucky ones,

15:46definitely make sure to use karma along with Too Good To Go and farmers markets and many other conscious

15:53choices. Moving on, if you love sharing food and random household stuff with your neighbors,

15:58then you should definitely check out Olio. Olio connects you with people nearby who have food or

16:03goods to share for free. It makes it super easy to get or share some extra bananas leftover lasagna

16:10or a chair that is standing in your room and not being used. It's similar to Craigslist in the US or,

16:18for example, eBay Klein and Zeugen in Germany, but its main focus is fighting food waste. I also carried

16:25out a little experiment with Olio, so let's watch it now. Thinking about how I can use it, I remembered

16:31that I have these two cans of food that I haven't been using for quite some time and they are still

16:38far away from their expiration date, so I thought that maybe someone else needs them more at this moment.

16:44The person that is going to pick up the food items from Olio messaged me that they're going to arrive

16:48soon, so very excited for that too. Everything is happening, the apps are working, no food waste.

16:55Wow, we're really saving the planet today. I'm already at the meeting point and just waiting for the

17:01message that they've arrived and then I will just give, give the food. It worked out super smoothly,

17:08I gave away the food. We just messaged where we were to meet and yeah, I'm super happy with the

17:14experience. So happy that I gave away the food to people that someone who needs it right now because

17:20those items were just sitting in my cupboard for months and I don't know when I would use them.

17:26That's great. So the only concern is that even though I shared that one station as a meeting point,

17:30he came very close to my house. So it means that the app shows your exact location and I wasn't very

17:39happy about it. Definitely will look into it in the settings. I'm so happy that the experiment worked

17:44out so well and I will definitely use it in the future whether I need to get rid of some fresh food

17:50or even household items. Moving on, we have Geeky Zero which allows you to calculate your carbon

17:56footprint without needing a science degree for that. The app gives you a personalized action plan

18:01based on your habits. Whether you want to reduce your meat intake, use less energy, buy better products,

18:08all the information is there. For example, this week while I was making and preparing for this video

18:13I took up on a few challenges. For example, sharing unused food, which I got to accomplish through Olio.

18:20Yay! Buying secondhand clothing, which I did through Binted. And I feel like I managed to grow my knowledge

18:26on climate change with you guys. We accomplished this challenge together, so let's clap for ourselves.

18:32The next app is iLuna. It's very similar to Geeky Zero, but honestly I enjoyed iLuna a little bit more.

18:38Don't tell Geeky Zero, please. iLuna helps you create and stick to small green goals. Whether it's plastic-free

18:45weak, veggie meals, cold wash challenge. It basically gamifies your eco journey, just like Duolingo,

18:52but for sustainable habits and without the judgmental owl. By the way, if you're searching

18:56for EU alternatives for Duolingo, give a look at Bubble and Lingvist. With iLuna, I set a weekly goal

19:02of reconnecting with my wardrobe, which I really enjoyed. As I mentioned through Vinted, I managed to

19:07sell some old clothes that I wasn't using, but they were still in good condition, but forgotten by me.

19:12And I mended and upcycled a few different pieces of clothing that I wasn't wearing for a long time,

19:18because they were either torn somewhere or too big on me. So I would call it a huge success,

19:24because now I got back my clothes that I used to love so much, but I couldn't wear for a long time

19:28for different reasons. And I will definitely be using iLuna a lot more in the future, and I think

19:33I will set weekly challenges for myself. Let me know if you'd be interested in watching a video like

19:38that. That would be cool. Moving on, if you ever wanted to decode food or cosmetic labels, but you

19:43don't have a PhD in chemistry, then you should definitely check out Yucca. Yucca scans barcodes

19:49and tells you how healthy or harmful a product is based on real studies. It will highlight red flag

19:55ingredients, endocrine disruptors, carcinogens. The Yucca app claims that its ratings are based on the

20:02evidence provided by the European Food Safety Authority, the National Agency for Food and

20:07Occupational Health Safety, and the International Agency for Research on Cancer. That also takes

20:13recognized European scientific studies into account. I've also used this app for quite some time,

20:18on and off, I think it's been two years now, and I find it very useful to check nutrient contents for

20:23food or different ingredients for cosmetics. That being said, you have to use it consciously,

20:28because I feel like sometimes it overreacts. It gives an unnecessarily low rating for a product that

20:34I think is not that bad. Matt Lambert, who is the Health Information and Promotion Manager at World

20:39Cancer Research Fund, said it way better than I could ever do. What is happening is that the app isn't

20:45able to give you the percentage of additives used, so whether it contains 0.01% or a larger percentage,

20:52it is scoring a product lower as soon as it contains it. While we should be aware of how many

20:58additives we consume, it is also worth bearing in mind that some of them have functional benefits

21:02like stopping food from going rancid. Just because a food contains certain additives,

21:07it doesn't necessarily mean the product is bad for us. We should pay more attention to the amount

21:12of saturated fat, sugar and salt it contains. It's our overall diet and lifestyle that by far has the

21:19biggest impact on our health. So obviously the best food products would be completely unprocessed,

21:25fresh fruits and vegetables that we can buy and make food ourselves. But in case you have to buy a

21:31processed product, Yucca app is super useful. And when it comes to personal care products and cosmetics,

21:37I find also extremely useful because I can always check whether something is carcinogenic or whether

21:42it contains an ingredient that makes me break out, for example. So yeah, overall the app is easy and clear

21:48to use and it's very helpful because sometimes it can be tricky to know what exactly goes into

21:55different products. I really enjoyed using the Yucca app during my little investigation

21:59and while I was at TK Maxx I really enjoyed switching between Brand Snap and Yucca

22:04to check all the aspects of what I was looking at. By the way, don't forget to download Brand Snap

22:10through the link in my description. And on that note, I think we can wrap up for this video. I really

22:15enjoyed and had so much fun using and trying all of these apps. Can these apps really turn you into

22:20an eco saint with a zero carbon footprint? Probably not. But they do make it easier to try. And as we

22:28know, trying is always better than doing nothing. And it's a lot more than most people do. Baby steps

22:34really matter. The banana that you're going to rescue on Olio really matters. Your French anti-monopoly

22:41shampoo purchase really matters. So I don't know about you, but I will definitely be using a lot

22:46more of these apps and platforms. One of my favorite additions to my sustainability and ethics collection

22:53are Brand Snap, Euro, Olio and iLuna. So let me know in the comments which apps did you like the most.

23:00And if you enjoyed this video, make sure to hit the like button and subscribe. Thank you so much for

23:05watching this video and until the next one, stay conscious!

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