Ginny Figlar Colón | pg.3

Day 97 of The Uniform Project — proof that one little black dress can make a difference.

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.

Carbon-neutral consumption at its best!

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.

Since I’m currently living as an expatriate in Sweden, I have been watching the stimulus package action from afar — with envy! Details are now emerging on how U.S. homeowners can take advantage of tax credits for energy-efficient improvements: a 30 percent rebate, up to a max of $1,500 for most projects. (The old federal tax credit was 10 percent up to a max of $500.)

Just because most of my frozen veggies are eco doesn’t make them the most environmentally friendly food choice.

For those of us trying our best to eat seasonally, this is the most challenging time of year. The farmers’ markets are closed down until spring in most parts of the country (here in Sweden, too), and the backyard garden looks like a cemetery of plant stakes.

I just about spit out my latté when I heard an eco-minded friend ponder the notion that disposable batteries could be easier on the environment than rechargeables.