Have you ever noticed the signs at cafés advertising the sale of their used coffee grounds? Our Sustain coffee cups are commercially compostable, and we love the idea of the circular economy, using waste as a resource. From snail repellent to body scrub. . . find out what your coffee grounds can be used for here.
Just like baking soda, used coffee grounds have a myriad of uses beyond the obvious. Cafés will sell you a bag if you don’t have your own home supply. We’ve delved into Nanna’s home remedies and found a list of ways you can use this handy ingredient:
• Compost – mix used coffee grounds into your compost to help stabilise the pH levels. Food will decompose faster and the coffee helps reduce the smell.
• Fertiliser – mix coffee grounds with water and pour on your plants. It adds nitrogen to the soil, helps drain excess water and retains moisture. Your perennials will love this treat, but your tomato plants won’t. You can also feed your hydrangeas and watch them flower blue.
• Boost your harvest – place coffee grounds in the soil when you plant your vegetables and with this additional nutrient your harvest will prosper. Some even mix the seedlings with coffee before planting.
• Repellent – worms love coffee while it repels slugs and snails. Cats are not fans, so sprinkling grounds over your garden will prevent it from turning into a litterbox.
• Deodoriser – fill the end of an old stocking with coffee grounds and hang it into your rubbish bin to get rid of those smells. This is an equally effective method for absorbing fridge smells, or sprinkle coffee grounds in your shoes overnight, they will smell fresher in the morning.
• Scratch repair – add water and mix grounds into a paste, then wipe over a scratch in your timber. The coffee will stain the scratch and make it less noticeable.
• Drain cleaner– boil a cup of coffee grounds in a pot of water, and then pour the entire hot mixture down the drain. The abrasive ingredient will scrub your drainpipes.
• Household cleaner – place coffee grounds on a cloth and scrub marks away. Great for pots, pans and benchtops. Coffee does stain so test your benchtop’s tolerance first.
• Winter fire – throw coffee grounds on the ashes and it will weigh them down making the hearth much easier to clean.
• Hair treatment – rub a handful of coffee grounds through your hair after washing to replenish natural oils, then rinse. It will make your hair light and shiny.
• Body Scrub – grounds are a suitable abrasive to use to exfoliate your skin. When in the shower simply rub the grounds on your body to remove dead skin, then rinse off.
• Hand deodoriser – get rid of the smell of garlic and onions on your hands after chopping and cooking by rubbing a small amount of coffee grounds onto your hands. Much more effective that liquid soaps.
We love the idea that the coffee waste itself can have a second life as a renewable resource, thus reducing waste. And after being composted in a commercial composting facility Sustain coffee cups will compost into a nutrient dense food waste, and that’s great for growing more plants. So, enjoy that morning coffee knowing that it does not only revitalise but can reduce waste and is part of a closed-loop lifecycle reducing your environmental footprint.
