I have been drinking more coffee lately so I thought it was about time I learned some ways to recycle coffee grounds rather than dumping them in the trash. To be honest, I don’t mind putting them in the rubbish because they combat any nasty smells the bin might produce, but the green person inside of me just hates that. Here are some ways to recycle coffee grounds I’ve learned – I’m going to try some – are you?
If you’re into natural ingredients and homemade toiletries/remedies, there are some ways to use coffee grounds in your beauty routine. One most often cited uses is to reduce the appearance of cellulite. If you want to try it, mix coffee grounds with olive oil and massage into your thighs. Let it rest for a few minutes then rinse off. Other uses include as an exfoliating ingredient in facial and body scrubs and soaps. Example recipe here popsugar.com
Still in the beauty realm, you can use coffee grounds to enhance the look of your brown tresses. Rub used coffee grounds into your hair and scalp after shampooing and rinsing. After rinsing out the coffee, your color will be boosted and your strands soft and shiny.
Coffee grounds are naturally mildly abrasive and also great for cutting through grease. This makes them an excellent natural, chemical-free cleaner. Got some stubborn burnt pots and pans? Get to work on them with coffee grounds. Scour the pan with a few spoons of the grounds until the gunge comes off. For stubborn burnt on food or particularly greasy pans, scrunch the filter – still full of grounds- into a scourer shape and use that. It will eventually split but then you just go to work with a scourer or sponge until the job is done.
There’s a few ways to recycle your coffee grounds in the garden. The simplest is to throw it on the compost heap. They can be used as a slug repellent and will also deter snails and ants. The acidity of coffee grounds makes them the perfect all-natural fertilizer for your acid soil-loving plants like hydrangeas and azaleas. Coffee also has an affinity to carrots, so if you are growing your own, mix coffee grounds with the seeds at sowing time.
If you’ve ever spilt coffee on a white t-shirt, you know just what an effective dye coffee is. If you’re a crafty person you can use coffee grounds to dye fabric and feathers. Use it to make marbled eggs for Easter or to age paper so it looks like parchment. If you’re already working with a color on a project and it isn’t dark enough, add some coffee grounds to give it a deeper hue.
I mentioned earlier that coffee grounds mask smells in a bin, Keep your coffee grounds in a sealed container until you change the trash bags over. Tip the grounds into the bag once you’ve settled it into the bin. You can also use coffee grounds in your fridge or freezer to absorb food odors. Put a small, open tub of them at the back of a shelf. Change every couple of weeks, remembering to use the grounds in the garden as above.
If you’ve got dark wooden furniture suffering from scratches, use coffee grounds to give it a new lease of life. Mix the grounds with a teeny bit of water to make a paste and swab the area. Leave it for 10 minutes, then wipe off.
If you have any more ways to use coffee grounds please share them in the comments. We love to learn from you guys!