Idea discussion: product environmental impact

Idea discussion: product environmental impact

I've been thinking of how much plastic, cardboard and other packaging materials we waste on a daily basis when we do our shopping. And it's mostly not out fault.

You want some crisps? They're in a plastic bag. And if that wasn't enough, in the plastic bag there's more tiny plastic bags. You want to buy environmentally friendly things? Good. But what's what? It's super hard to know. You have a tremendous amount of things to consider, like:

• initial manufacturing processes,
• where did the ingredients come from,
• transport, storage,
• how much of it is usually wasted,
• can it be recycled and does it typically get recycled,
• is the brand overall creating a lot of negative environmental impact, in which case it might be better to support a more environmentally friendly company,

and this list is just something I made up now. It's something to consider carefully. Data is also very sparse or I'm not looking in the right places.

The idea? A simple app to give you a summary of how what you're buying impacts the environment, how it ranks with other similar products and what's the best replacement given environmental friendliness.

I'm dedicated to try it out and see how far I can go and I'd love to have a discussion about where to find data, what things I should look at to rank products for environmental friendliness, and generally what do you think of this idea? How would you start?