Green Minds LFLB creates recycling app

A group of environmental advocates from Lake Forest and Lake Bluff united to develop a mobile phone application that will help residents better use local recycling resources. The group is called Green Minds LFLB.

Green Minds LFLB has created a free downloadable app - "Recycle LFLB" - to help residents find solutions for how to recycle. Controlling waste stream costs and limiting the volume of materials sent to landfills is important for all municipalities. Green Minds found that locals are often confused about what goes where and that there was a need for better information on reusing, recycling and composting.

This innovative and user-friendly app will help local residents see when their next curbside recycling, ordinary waste stream and yard waste pickups are. It also allows the users to search more than 500 items to find the most sustainable solution for discarding them.

Lastly, residents can be linked to local resources and their municipalities to order new recycling bins and get more information, all from their mobile devices.

Four core Green Minds volunteers worked long evenings for seven weeks to bring this app to life:

• Data Analyst: Azza Andreesen, analyzed and organized the data.

• Graphic Designer: Marcus Norman from Norman Design Co. created the logos, interface and design of the app.

• Programmer: Christian Rasmussen, a junior at Lake Forest High School, was responsible for programming the app and came up with a user-intuitive platform.

• Project Manager: Yuh Schabacker-Koppel coordinated the effort and was responsible for research and gathering data for the search part of the app.

The app was made possible with the collaboration of the city of Lake Forest and the village of Lake Bluff and the help of many Green Minds volunteers.

"Green Minds hopes this app will be used by many residents," Green Minds board member Yuh Schabacker-Koppel said. "By donating this app, Green Minds hopes to reduce our communities' waste stream expenses while also helping our communities become more sustainable."

The team had a lot of fun working on the app.

"It was a fantastic and evolving experience to work together as a team in the real world by creating the Green Minds app," Christian Rasmussen said. "It's my hope that all Lake Forest and Lake Bluff residents will download the 'Recycle LFLB' app to their phones to help make a better future for all of us."

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