Ginny Figlar Colón

I don’t like calling myself an environmentalist, because I know there is so much more I could be doing. I think a better title would be something like “simplist.” I do try to live a simpler, more sustainable life. My husband and I both have degrees in environmental sciences (mine are in environmental sciences and environmental journalism) and I worked for Greenpeace for awhile. These things help when analyzing more complex issues like a wine’s true environmental impact or the carbon footprint of organic produce. But most of the time, taking the eco-path is something that just comes from the gut. It helps that we live in a very environmentally friendly country right now — Sweden (though we hail from Colorado). We also recently had our first child, which has taken our eco-mindedness up a notch. Life keeps getting better … and greener.

Think of sustainable home furnishings, and the words bamboo, recycled soda bottles and FSC-certified probably come to mind.

Makes sense. I mean, the material of a product is the easiest eco-criteria to evaluate. But lately I’ve been curious about the not-so-obvious qualities of a product that could make it a more sustainable choice — things like function, transport and recyclability.

Having lived most of my life in metropolitan areas — with just about every mega chain store in easy reach — I had never made anything for myself and almost never bought anything used.

Sometimes what seems like the clear eco-winner or loser really isn’t.

My husband just earned a master’s in industrial environmental management and is “pounding the internet” for a green job. The vast majority of jobs are posted online and applied for online. Even the setting up of the interview is usually done online. So we were surprised when, after a completely online application process, one company sent its “thanks, but no thanks” response via snail mail.

Could you wear the same dress every day for a year? Sheena Matheiken can.

He threw one beer can in the trash. Then another. Then at least a dozen more. And I didn’t do anything about it.

“He” is my husband’s brother, and it was his trash and his house. My family and I were guests for five days this summer and accomplices to his unsustainable disposal habits.

Wood is a renewable resource, especially when it comes from responsibly managed forests. And there’s another way to help the planet when purchasing wood furniture — one that can also help your budget: buying used!

If you think about it, flea markets are green markets, and I can’t help but get that pat-myself-on-the-back feeling of satisfaction when I give a piece of furniture a second chance at life.

If your life is anything like mine, spring cleaning does not get completed in one fell swoop. Mine’s dragged out for weeks. But this weekend, my hissing air purifier reminded me of a few places germs love to hide out while we’re all distracted with cleaning out our closets, scrubbing our grout and weeding our gardens.

Moments before Earth Hour started, I lit candles, switched off the lights and announced my participation by updating my Facebook status to “Ginny is lights out.”

A few hours later (yes, we quite liked the candlelit vibe going on in the house), I saw that one of my Facebook friends declared all Earth Hour participants a “bunch of ridiculous treehuggers.” Hmmph.

I recently had to order printer cartridges on eBay and have them shipped to me from China. (I will spare you the details, but it involves incompatibility issues with European-sold cartridges.) This makes me feel extra guilty about anything I print now.

So I was happy to discover that a Dutch creative agency, SPRANQ, has found a way to reduce ink usage by up to 20 percent with its recently developed Ecofont. The font is designed with holes in the middle of the letters – sort of a Swiss cheese effect – and is free to download for personal use on a Mac or PC.

When you’re doing everything you can to eliminate chemicals in your 1-year-old’s environment, getting gifts can sometimes cause a bit of a conundrum. Take the pajamas my mother-in-law sent us this week, which were treated with fire retardants.