7 Ways To Re-Use Coffee Grounds
Today is International Coffee Day, and we thought we’d share some of the ways we discovered we can use coffee grounds. Did you know… Your morning pot of coffee offers a good amount of coffee grounds and a natural paper filter that there are all kinds of uses for? We’ve been testing coffee grounds to use for all kinds of purposes to bring you a handful of tips to make your life better, easier, and take much better care of the planet (vs. those single use, plastic coffee pods that are popular).
We have found these tips are best for used coffee grounds, however, if you have some old/stale grounds, you can use them for most of these (fresh grounds aren’t great for plants, the acidity that hasn’t been washed out tends to scorch plants a bit). And if you would like to incorporate coffee grounds into your daily living but don’t drink coffee, you may find your local coffee establishment will likely be happy to get rid of their used coffee grounds, or they may already have a section with ‘grounds for your garden’ – just ask them.
Let’s start with natural paper filters. Natural paper coffee filters break down naturally, and can also be used to line your plant pots to prevent dirt from falling through the bottom holes while letting the water drain out. That paper filter with some used coffee grounds makes an effective dish scrubber – perfect for gentle scrubbing out our cooking pots, our kitty’s wet food dish, and more. That technically would be our 8th use for coffee grounds, so let’s just get right to our top 7! In no particular order…today we have for you…
7 Ways To Re-Use Coffee Grounds
7. Mix used coffee grounds with banana peel and egg shells for some of the best rose food you can make. We’ll mix those 3 items in the blender with some water, and give roses a “smoothie” of sorts when the stems first start showing leaves coming in at the start of the growing season.
6. If you’re off-grid or traveling in a skoolie, used coffee grounds work amazingly well to neutralize any odor in a compost-bucket toilet. Sprinkling a small handful on your poop and covering with peat or sawdust is a game changer. We put that one to the test for a few months, and wow!!!
5. Add a good handful of used coffee grounds to an old plastic gallon jug or watering can and fill with water and use it to water your plants. It delivers a healthy amount of nitrogen to your plant’s roots, something houseplants especially love. That was my secret to growing a pothos with 12′ long vines inside my office when I worked for the world’s leader of technology. If you use this on flowering plants, it may send your plants into a veg-state, growing lots of leaves with no flowers. When I grew my first cannabis plant (legally in the state of Oregon), it was small and starting to flower and as a total noob, I thought it would be helpful to give it a growth boost of coffee grounds and water but this (fortunately) sent the plant back into veg-state, developing stronger stems and bigger, greener leaves. If you have lawn as part of your landscaping, it will also appreciate a nitrogen boost with used coffee grounds. In fact, many coffee houses (smaller independent coffee houses as well as Starbucks often offer grounds for your garden. Now you’ll know how to use them, so grab ’em up.
4. For a redonkydonk yummy spa treatment for bath time, mix used, dried out coffee grounds with pure cocoa powder, vanilla extract, a bit of coconut sugar or brown sugar, and either almond, sunflower, avocado, or olive oil to make the best smelling body scrub I’ve ever used. It smells like brownie batter and leaves my skin so soft and smooth. Use cautiously because it does leave the tub or shower slick. It can also be used outside the bath, either as a hand scrub or a phenomenally delightful foot scrub. You can also make some and put it in little jam jars and it makes a wonderful gift for family and friends. Here’s a bonus recipe for you! 🙂
1/4c coffee grounds
3/4c sugar (coconut sugar, brown sugar, or a combination of the two)
1t cocoa powder
1/2t vanilla (we prefer pure Mexican vanilla but a generic store-bought extract works well also)
1/4c oil (almond, olive, avocado, or sunflower)
3. A handful of used coffee grounds makes a great grime-removing sink scrub (another use for that paper filter too). As coffee has natural oil in it, you may want to add a little dishsoap to that rinsed coffee filter to get the oils out of the sink. We use ECOS plant-based dishsoap and it’s way better for the environment, cheaper, and works better than any of the mainstream commercial dishsoaps we’ve used over the years. It’s usually under $3.50 for a 25oz bottle. And as a reminder, we’re not currently affiliated with any brand/product we mention, we’re fans and sharing what we found works.
2. Mix about 1T of used coffee grounds and 1t of coconut oil for a deep cleaning and softening hand scrub. When we were building out our skoolie, our hands were a hot, filthy mess, and we had all kinds of yuck we needed to scrub off. Coffee grounds and coconut oil, baby, that’s all it took, even to take butyl tape off when we re-sealed the windows.
1. Ever notice that your sink drain or garbage disposal may sometimes just have a bit of a smelly funk going on? De-stankify with a handful or two of used grounds, fresh and wet or dry, and run your disposal with a little water. It works like MAGIC.
There you have it, beautiful souls. And Happy International Coffee Day today (Oct. 1) 🙂 Cheers to finding better ways to care for and live in harmony with our beloved planet earth! Do you have other ways you like to use coffee grounds? If so, let us know in the comments! We’d love to do even more with them.
