Plastic Coach
A coach that read the research so you don't have to
The glowing button on your Today screen opens the Plastic Coach: ask anything about your scans, your swaps or a headline you just read, and get a plain-language answer grounded in the same studies the scanner scores with.
Free to start with 3 scans · 3-day free trial on Premium · iOS
How the coach works
Ask in your own words
No jargon required. "Is my kid's water bottle fine?" is a perfectly good question.
It knows your scans
Answers use your actual scan history and exposure index, so advice is about your kitchen, not a hypothetical one.
Get a next step, not a lecture
Every answer ends with something doable: a swap, a habit change, or the next thing worth scanning.
What people ask it
The coach answers from the research behind the app and says so when the evidence is thin.
Decode your results
Why a scan scored the way it did, which material drove it, and whether the number is worth acting on.
Sanity-check headlines
Paste the scary claim from your feed and get what the underlying study actually found.
Plan your swaps
Tell it your budget and routine, and it ranks which swap removes the most exposure per dollar.
Weekly momentum
Ask why your index moved this week and it names the exact scans that did it.
See it answer
Real exchanges, the way they read in the app.
My toddler chews on everything. What actually matters?
Mouthing time on soft, aged plastic is the thing to manage: worn teethers and scratched sippy spouts top the list. Hard, intact items barely register. Scan the three things that live in the diaper bag and I will rank them.
Is the microwave really that big a deal?
For plastic containers, yes, it is usually the single largest controllable source in a kitchen. Heat plus fat plus scratched plastic multiplies shedding. Same food in glass drops that meal to near zero.
Every answer cites its sources
The coach draws on the same research library that powers the scanner's scores: peer-reviewed microplastics and food-contact studies, regulatory ingredient lists, and published lab tests. When an answer leans on a specific finding, the study is linked right in the chat so you can read it yourself. And when the evidence is thin or contested, the coach says that too, because "we don't know yet" is sometimes the honest answer.
Peer-reviewed studies
The findings behind the answers, explained in plain language in our research hub.
Lab-tested databases
Brand-level numbers from published tests, kept citable in our open data tables.
Labeled uncertainty
Estimates are labeled as estimates, in the chat and in the guide the scoring follows.
Works together with
Ask the question you've been sitting on
Three free scans gives the coach something real to work with. Then ask away.
Download on iOSFree · 3 scans included · No credit card required