For those who drink coffee on a regular basis, you can quickly build up a supply of used coffee grounds in as little as a few days. You can certainly throw those used coffee grounds in the trash or your compost pile, but why not put them to a second use around your house first. Here are a few things you can do with them:
1. Use them to fertilize your indoor and outdoor plants. The coffee grounds provide a natural source of nitrogen for your plants and they will thank you for it. Add a spoonful or two to the top of the soil and mix in with the upper layer to help them blend in.
2. Make yourself a coffee scrub to pamper your hands, face or entire body. The coffee grounds serve as a gentle exfoliant and they are packed with antioxidants. Making a coffee scrub is super easy. You can combine equal parts coffee grounds, sugar (white or brown) and an oil (almond, grapeseed, apricot or jojoba). Apply to your skin and then rinse off. The caffeine in the coffee grounds helps to tighten the skin and the grit in both the sugar and the coffee grounds helps to exfoliate.
3. Use them to absorb odors. If you’ve ever been in a perfume or candle store where they have a jar of coffee beans handy for you to sniff between scents, you know that coffee deodorizes odor rather quickly. After you’ve made your daily pot of coffee, spread the wet grounds on a baking sheet and pop them in the oven at 250oF until they are dry. Then, you can place the coffee grounds in bowls or jars in areas where you need some odor absorbed.
4. Use them to clean your hands. Since coffee grounds are useful as both an exfoliant and an odor absorber, you can use them to clean your hands after preparing particularly aromatic foods like onions or garlic. It is also a nice cleansing agent after spending time outdoors in the yard or garden.
5. Use them for traction on icy sidewalks. It’s nearly spring now on the east coast, but in colder, wetter weather spreading the grounds on top of ice will help you have traction and lessen the need for salt or other chemicals.
No matter what you do with your coffee grounds, know that they can be put to all sorts of different purposes. If you’re already drinking coffee, you might as well find another use for them since the additional application of them is free and could save you money by not needing to buy other things like plant fertilizer and ice melt.
for everyday.