by Lorelei Cohen

Created on: August 14, 2010   Last Updated: September 08, 2010

Americans drink more than 330 million cups of coffee each and every day. Add in the coffee that is sipped in Canada, Great Britain, Australia, Switzerland, and the rest of the world, and it all adds up to a whole lot of used coffee grounds hitting the local landfill. These left over coffee grounds are a tremendous amount of unnecessary vegetable waste being disposed of when they really do not have to be. Used coffee grounds are recyclable.

Not only is recycling good for the environment, but by reusing these coffee grinds you may also be able to solve a few household problems that occur in, or around your home. Coffee grinds make an excellent  fertilizer, deodorizer, dye, stain, or bug repellent. Those used grinds that you would otherwise discard in your trash, can be used to replace products that you would have otherwise had to purchase.  By recycling your coffee grounds you are helping out the environment.

When you recycle used coffee grinds you help to reduce the amount of trash that floods into our landfills each year. That one little basket of grinds may not look like too much material all by itself, but when you add up all the used grinds that you create in a year, well it adds up to quite a tremendous amount.

There are a number of ways that you can recycle your used coffee grinds. The first step is to save them. If you live in a house, or other housing unit which has a yard area, then these used coffee grinds are going to come in very useful. Sprinkled within plant beds, and gardens, coffee grounds make excellent fertilizer. These used coffee grinds contain a number of nutrients including calcium, nitrogen, magnesium, phosphorus, and potassium so why would you want to put all that nutrition into your trash can? These used coffee grounds also repel bugs such as ants, slugs, and cutworms. So they are especially beneficial for root crops such as carrots and radishes that might otherwise be attacked by these garden pests.

Ants hate used coffee grounds so much, that you may actually be able to reduce the ant populations within your yard by simply applying regular doses of these grinds directly onto the ant colonies, or hills that you find there. Sprinkle barriers made from used coffee grinds around areas where you do not want these pests to venture. Another creature that really is not fond of the smell of coffee grounds is the common household cat, and this method of pest control, will also work to keep her from venturing into those areas as well.

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