Ideas for Leftover Coffee Grounds

As the coffee industry becomes more eco-conscious when it comes to packaging and our impact on the environment, it’s also worth considering how we can do our bit and help to reduce waste while still enjoying our favourite beverage.

Gardening

Adding spent coffee grounds to your garden helps to prevent slugs and promotes plant growth.

Coffee grounds contain several key minerals for plant growth; nitrogen, calcium, potassium, iron, phosphorus, magnesium and chromium. They may also help absorb heavy metals that can contaminate soil. What's more, coffee grounds help attract worms, which are great for your garden.

It can also be added to compost to enrich it. People have also used coffee grounds as an insect repellent – caffeine (and other compounds) found within coffee are natural insecticides.

Body care

Coffee grounds can be used as a body/face scrub, this is best with a coarser grind as fine ground won’t give a good consistency as it turns more into a paste than a scrub.

Simply mix coffee grounds with a little bit of water or coconut oil and scrub them with your hands directly onto your face and body. The scrub will help remove dirt and dead skin cells and promote overall skin health.

Cooking

Spice rubs for meat is one way coffee grounds can be used and are great for slow cooked barbecue meat. Mix the grounds in with your favourite spices and rub it into your meat a couple of hours before cooking. The acids and enzymes within coffee will help tenderise the meat and help make it tastier.

Neutralise bad odours

Coffee grounds will neutralise bad odours.  If you put it in your food waste bin it will smell less, and a bowl of leftover coffee grounds is also good in the fridge when you have things in there with strong smells.

How to store coffee grounds

Want to use your coffee grounds around the home, but don’t know how to store them until you’re ready? Here’s how to store coffee grounds until you’re ready to use them.

• Let the coffee grounds cool after initial brewing.
• Place the used coffee grounds in an air-tight container. It can be either plastic or metal. 
• Put the used grounds in the fridge. (Don’t leave them at room temperature. They have moisture in them after brewing, so they could get mouldy.) You can also freeze them if you want them to keep for longer.

After your morning brew, add more coffee grounds to your storage so you have a stockpile when you’re ready to take care of your garden, home, odours, skin, and more!