We all love and appreciate the aroma of a good coffee in the morning. While making your coffee at home has always been the most eco-friendly and cost-effective way to enjoy your cup of joe, not everyone knows that the usefulness of coffee grounds extend far beyond just producing that cup of delicious coffee. From taking care of the flower plants to being a key ingredient for homemade natural beauty products, let's take a look at some of these sustainable and wallet friendly hacks to recycle and give new life to used coffee grounds all around the house.
In and Around The House
Keep Ants Away
While we love coffee, the same can’t be said for ants! To keep them away from your home, sprinkle used coffee grounds where you see ants entering. It is an excellent natural and eco-friendly alternative to chemical insecticide. If there’s a colony inside your house, then this method may not be sufficient. In that case, contact the pest control company.
Eliminate Odours
After brewing your morning cup, place a little bowl of the spent grounds at the back of your fridge to eliminate any funky smells. Just make sure to change it periodically. The same trick can be used for the shoe rack, the cellar or other closed areas of the house. Coffee grounds also extract odours from skin. After chopping garlic, rub a tablespoon of the grounds on your hands and rinse to eliminate any trace of unwanted scent.
Fertilise the plants.
Coffee grounds are suitable for fertilising flowers that love acid soils such as roses, azaleas, rhododendrons, evergreens and camellias. It adds the necessary acidity to the soil, and the flowers will be able to draw more nourishment from it. What you may not know is that you don't necessarily have to have a garden to use spent coffee grounds as fertiliser. Just pour a glass of the used grounds into 2 litres of water, mix and let it rest for 24 hours. Use it the next day to water the indoor plants you keep inside the pots for the same beneficial effect.
Bake With Them
A truly zero-waste option is to upcycle your coffee grounds into delicious baked goods! Nothing pairs better with a freshly brewed cup of coffee than a caffeine-infused biscotti. Find the recipe here. Most culinary endeavours call for espresso grounds, but we find an AeroPress is the next best thing for deep tasting coffee if you don’t own an espresso machine.
Remove Encrustations.
To remove stubborn stains and encrustations from washable surfaces including from your pots and pans, why not rub some coffee grounds on them with the help of a sponge. Add a little water or natural liquid soap to facilitate the operation.
As Beauty Treatments
Natural Exfoliator
Combine used coffee grounds with olive oil or honey to get a natural body and face scrub that will leave your skin extremely smooth and glowing. Coffee and coffee grounds can also be used as an eco-friendly foot bath. Just soak your feet in warm water and coffee mixture for 20 minutes and rub the spent coffee grounds on the rough areas.
Face mask
Save some money and make an all natural face mask using spent coffee grounds. The preparation for this skin softening mask is very simple: mix used coffee grounds, cocoa powder, milk or yoghurt (even non-dairy one), and honey or malt in equal proportions. Apply and massage the mask on damp skin and leave to act for 15-20 minutes before rinsing it off.
Anti-cellulite Treatment
By recycling used coffee grounds you can make your own natural anti-cellulite cream. All you need to do is combine them with sugar and a carrier oil. Apply this mixture on the skin, massage it with circular movements for 10 minutes, or wrap in cling film and keep it on for 20 minutes. Then rinse. Repeat 2-3 times a week.
So next time you brew yourself a cup of coffee, don’t throw away the spent grounds!
