We love a good app at Parklands, especially those that help us do our jobs better. This one is not in our usual citizen science swag, but one well worth sharing for it’s ultimate environmental value.

Recycle Mate, a new recycling app we found through Cleanup Australia, removes the guesswork from recycling, no matter where you are.

Whether at home, at a friend’s house or when you’re on holidays, just take a photo or type the name of an item you would like to know more about and Recycle Mate will give you disposal advice specific to your location. For example it will confirm which bin to use or learn if there is a better recycling option near you.

You can search from over 5,000 items in its comprehensive directory. This is continually growing with community feedback.

The app uses AI to identify your waste and recyclables to find the best local disposal option. Every photo taken using the Recycle Mate app and every question asked helps continually grow Recycle Mate.

Covering all areas of Australia, Recycle Mate provides information for every council kerbside recycling system. For those times when an item can’t be recycled at home through kerbside bins, the app now has over 20,000 away-from-home reuse and recycling options and this number is continually growing.

Using Recycle Mate will help to reduce contamination in recycling streams – an insidious problem leading to bulk recyclables ending up in landfill. It potentially only takes one non-recyclable item to contaminate an entire load of recyclables, so being able to check before you recycle is a fantastic way to make sure that ‘one item’ is not one of yours!