Coffee Grounds: trash or treasure?

COFFEE GROUNDS: TRASH OR TREASURE?

On June 5th the International Day of the Environment is celebrated.

There are so many initiatives and activities suggested and promoted every year around the world at this date to make us feel a bit more “environment friendly”.
But a day of “good practice” is not enough to make us eco-friendly, sustainable and responsible for the environment!

Small Actions = Big Changes

The simpler and smaller everyday actions, repeated every day, they really make the difference!

Some have become part of our lifestyle and our culture, becoming spontaneous and almost deserved actions:

make recycling
avoid food waste (even at the restaurant, asking for the “doggy bag”)
close the water tap while we brush our teeth or while we soap in the shower.

For others, it takes some more time, research, information and attention: use energy-efficient tools and products, pay attention to purchases to avoid waste (quantity and quality of what we buy).

With a little more fancy, we can give a “second life” to “waste products”.
That is, a new use to many products that we normally throw in trash, unaware that with a little creativity, we can find not only one but many ways to reuse them.

Is it worth it for coffee too? Of course!

There are many ways, not just to reuse, but also to create new smart uses of coffee grounds. It’s enough having right information and a little cleverness!

Let’s try to give you some tip:

1. for our creativity

boiling coffee grounds, we get a color concentrate that can be used as a natural dye for fabrics or paper (do you know the paintings made with coffee?).
even scratches on dark wood furniture can be remodeled with this concentrate or alternatively with a creamy paste made coffee grounds and warm water.
another creative idea? The anti-rust pins: we use the coffee grounds (well dried) as a padding of a do-it-yourself pincushions. Coffee in fact avoids the formation of rust.

2. for our beauty

For the most attentive to well-being, there are many uses about beauty and cure of our body.

we mix coffee grounds with olive oil (or massage oil) to prepare a coffee scrub for the body, which will give softness and brightness to the skin, as well as it is also an excellent anti-cellulite remedy.
if we are already used to keep the “leftovers” of the soaps (especially the Marsiglia ones), we can give them a “second life” by preparing home made soap. Try adding coffee grounds to get a good soap for the hands for the kitchen, to remove bad smells like garlic, onions and spices.
if you need an abrasive paste to keep in works or in garage, we use the funds to turn our liquid soap into an effective heavy duty hand cleaner!

3. for our home

Coffee grounds are a great resource for gardening and home cleaning!

to remove stubborn dirt or scratches, use a damp sponge and coffee grounds, possibly with some natural liquid soap.
if the problem is the ants, we do not use unnecessary pesticides (which, in addition, do harm our health and the environment) but shoot some coffee grounds in the affected areas.
for all “green inches” the coffee grounds added to the soil are a great nourishment for plants, especially for those who love acidic soils such as roses, azaleas and rhododendrons.
or the coffee grounds scattered along the edges of the garden, send away from annoying insects and snails.
Always in a natural way, without creating harm to the environment!

Every “waste product” hide a new use.
So, before we hurry to throw it out, stop for a moment and think about how it might be reused.

COFFEE GROUNDS