First, let me apologize for the delay in getting this out… I was sick all weekend & got a little behind… it happens to the best of us 
I cannot even imagine the amount of coffee grounds that are destined for the landfill each day… every office building has @ least one coffee/break room – my building has three. Coffee grounds in land fills contribute to the creation of methane (greenhouse gas = bad). If you are reading this I am going to assume you understand & care about the dangers of methane. If you want a refresher, you can research it here. Clearly, the more “stuff” we can keep out of the landfills, the better off our planet will be in the long term. Now, I am not saying you have to do anything as drastic as track down coffee grounds @ your local coffee house. In fact, so many people are doing just that that I regularly have a hard time finding a coffee shop with grounds available. Plus, remember… This is a Start Where You Are, Use What You Have, Do What You Can, It Will Be Enough dealio. So, if you have a coffee/breakroom/Kitchen in your workplace – just start there. When I started collecting coffee grounds from my workplace I just brought in an old plastic cookie dough tub that was left over from a school fund raising purchase, made a label in MS Word ( I know Microsoft = Ugh!! But it is the standard here 
) “Used Coffee Grounds Here Please”, then took the container home each Friday. Some grounds I used still wet, some I spread on a cookie sheet to dry. Simple 
Along with the many uses for leftover coffee (which I am not covering here), there are so many uses for used coffee grounds that you will have no problem finding something to do with the grounds you collect from your workplace. So much so that you will start to wish your colleagues would drink more coffee Here are just a few ideas:
- Worm Bin – Simply mix with shredded paper when starting a new tray instead of using coir or just throw the grounds in (filter & all) as you get them. About a cup per week will keep your worms happy & healthy
- Composter – Throw the used grounds in the composter to help with nitrogen balance. Coffee grounds are considered a “green” material so don’t overdo it here either.
- Animal Repellent – Coffee grounds around your garden will keep the neighborhood cats (or your own) from using it as a litter box. You can even combine with orange peel waste for added protection. Slugs, Snails, Moles, & Root Worms hate coffee grounds as well. Just sprinkle the grounds liberally wherever you have a problem with any of these critters. For flea repellent just rub your pet’s fur with dry grounds & brush through (I also bathe my dog (Kaia) with lemongrass soap which seems to work great as well). For Ants just fill an old can with grounds & place it under cabinets, on window sills, or wherever you want to ward off ants.
- Garden – Used coffee grounds make a great fertilizer! Worked through the soil the grounds will loosen soil (carrots & radishes especially will benefit ), attract worms, & help retain moisture. Conversely, simply sprinkle the grounds in a thin layer atop the soil to help add minerals/nutrients such as nitrogen, magnesium, calcium, & potassium back into the soil & help keep the weeds down. Be careful not to spread them too thickly or they will create a crusty water barrier as they dry. For acid loving plants like hydrangeas, blueberries, roses, evergreens, etc. the more coffee grounds the merrier . Finally, you can make a sort of “tea” from the used grounds… For my garden, I use a wagon full of old cat litter buckets to haul water from the rain barrels to the garden. I put about a cup of coffee grounds into each bucket before filling, wheel the wagon of filled buckets out to the garden & let sit for about an hour. Then water the garden with the nutrient rich coffee ground “tea”
These are the things I do most often with the coffee grounds I collect & I think that is enough for one day. In my next post I will go into some of the more off-the-wall uses (in my opinion ) for the used coffee grounds. For now, if you haven’t already done so, I would encourage you to start your own coffee ground recycling program in your workplace 8)
