While browsing the web last night, I came across a great posting from our friends over at curbly.com. They give us some interesting uses for your used coffee grounds. If you'd like to check out the original posting on curbly.com, click here.
Without further adieu, here are what curbly.com lists as the top 10 uses for used coffee grounds:
10. Deodorizer. Dry them out on a cookie sheet and then put them in a bowl in your refrigerator or freezer, or rub them on your hands to get rid of food prep smells.
9. Plant food. Plants such as rosebushes, azaleas, rhododendrons, evergreen and camellias that prefer acidic soils will appreciate the leftovers from your morning cup. Also, grounds can add nutrients to your compost bin.
8. Insect repellant. Sprinkle old grounds around places you don’t want ants, or on the ant piles themselves. The little buggers will move on or stay away. Used grounds are also said to repel snails and slugs.
7. Dye. By steeping grounds in hot water, you can make brown dye for fabric, paper and even Easter eggs.
6. Furniture scratch cover-up. Steep grounds and apply a bit of the liquid to furniture scratches with a Q-tip.
5. Cleaning product. As they’re slightly abrasive, grounds can be used as a scouring agent for greasy and grimy stain-resistant objects.
4. Kitty repellent. To keep kitty from using the garden as her personal powder room, sprinkle grounds mixed with orange peels around your plants.
3. Flea dip. Follow up Fido’s shampoo with a coffee ground rub down, working them down to his skin. Not only are the fleas suppose to vamoose, but puppy’s hair will feel soft too.
2. Dust inhibitor. Before you clean out the fireplace, toss wet coffee grounds over the ashes to keep the ash dust under control.
And, finally, the #1 use for used coffee grounds....drum roll here....
1. Cellulite reducer. Mix 1/4 cup warm, used coffee grounds and 1 tablespoon of olive oil. While standing over an old towel or newspaper, apply the mixture to your "problem areas". Next, wrap the areas with shrink wrap and leave on for several minutes. Unwind the wrap, brush loose grounds off your skin and then shower with warm water. For best results, it is recommended to repeat this procedure twice a week. A little weird to be sure, but as high priced cellulite creams have coffee in them, it just might work.
While myself (or anyone else at Corporate Essentials) can verify that we have tried all of the above uses for coffee grounds, we strongly urge you to give number nine (plant food) a try. To take that one even a step further - try using your used coffee grounds (or even single-cup pods) as compost for your garden. Because the material used to make the pod filters is 100% biodegradable, you can bury them in your garden just the way they are.
Do you have any other uses for coffee grounds? Let us know in an email, and we'll send you a Corporate Essentials t-shirt.
4 comments:
I have been using coffee grounds on and around my rose plants for over 20 years. It is a natural fertilizer and adds important nutrients to the soil increasing the acidity level which roses absolutely love. The only problem I incur is that I have over 30 rose plants! Therefore, I need to drink alot of coffee to equally distribute to each of my plants.
You can go to any Starbucks and they will give you free bags of coffee grounds--BIG bags. Some even have containers of the bags sitting by the doors for the taking.
i am helping my son with his science project. he wants to do it on growing beans, using sunlight, water, and fertilizer; other bean plant will have no sunlight, less water, and no fertilizer. I was wondering, since i use coffee grounds on my plants in the house...would the coffee grinds work with beans?
These are very useful information about Coffee grounds! Thanks a lot for sharing these uses.
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