With all the used coffee grounds you toss during the week, why not put some aside and re-purpose them for a new use? While the best use for coffee grounds (especially Sasquatch Coffee) is to make great coffee, here are a few ideas to consider for ways to get some extra life out of your old grounds.
Absorb Food Odors
Used coffee grounds can be used much like baking soda for absorbing food odors in the refrigerator and freezer. Just load up a small open container with your old grounds, place it in the back of the fridge, then forget about it for a couple of weeks while you collect more grounds. As an added bonus, after you remove smelly old grounds from the refrigerator or freezer, you can then toss them on the compost pile or use them for fertilizer!
Natural Abrasive
Sprinkle old coffee grounds onto an old cleaning cloth and use them to scrub away stuck-on food from counters or dishes. While used grounds are abrasive, they aren’t so harsh that they will damage the surfaces in your kitchen. (Just be sure not to accidentally scrub grounds into cracks where they might leave behind stains!)
Clean Out the Fireplace
No, used coffee grounds won’t do all of the work for you. However, they will make the process of cleaning out your fireplace much easier and less messy. Gently scatter old used coffee grounds over the ashes to weight them down and prevent the huge clouds of smoke that often arise when performing this arduous task. Not only will shovelling the ashes be easier than ever before, you also won’t have to wipe down every horizontal surface in the room when you’re done.
Pest Repellent
Sprinkle used coffee grounds around your plants to protect them against destructive garden pests like ants, snails, and slugs. It has even been said that old grounds mixed with dried orange peel will keep away some small mammals like cats (though Felix can be a tough customer. If coffee and orange peel doesn’t work, try rosemary oil instead!)
Fertilize Your Garden
If you grow azaleas, hydrangeas, rhododendrons, camellias, roses, or other acid-loving plants, then used coffee is the fertilizer for you! Mix your old grounds with dead grass clippings, brown leaves, or dry straw to neutralize some of the acidity, the spread them around your plants. Used coffee grounds add nitrogen and potassium to the soil (the first and third numbers in the fertilizer formula: N – P – K) as well as a boost of magnesium which all plants need to stay healthy.
Just remember that this fertilizer lacks phosphorus and calcium so it isn’t ideal for encouraging blooms and fruiting. You’ll need to add lime or wood ash to the mix if you want to create a complete fertilizer using old coffee grounds.
To have old coffee grounds, you first new fresh coffee to brew! Look through our selection of micro-brewed coffee here.
SRC: Find the complete post here: www.naturallivingideas.com/14-genius-ways-recycle-used-coffee-grounds/