Millions of people all across the globe rely on coffee to help them get through the day!
Indeed, a lot of people can’t even consider the thought of a day without a few cups of coffee!
However, all that coffee being brewed results in a lot of coffee grounds. What can you do with them?
Can you just throw them down the sink, or is that a bad idea?
However, coffee grounds shouldn’t go down the sink. This is because coffee doesn’t break down when it gets wet like other foods do, which could lead to pipes getting blocked. Instead, you can use coffee grounds for fertilizing your garden, for composting, or recycling them for biofuel use.
Don’t Put Your Coffee Grounds In The Sink!
You might well have heard a myth that putting coffee grounds down your sink not only isn’t a bad thing, but that it’s also good for the pipes because it helps to scrub them down from the inside!
Well, unfortunately, it’s a total untruth – although it would be great if it actually worked!
The simple truth is that you shouldn’t put coffee grounds down your sink at all.
In fact, you shouldn’t put any solid waste objects down your sink at all!
Even if you’ve got a garbage disposal installed in your sink, as many people do, you still shouldn’t dispose of coffee grounds like this.
This is because coffee doesn’t break down when it gets wet the way that most foods do – it just gets thicker and denser, and can easily cause blockages in your pipes!
If you’re a big coffee drinker, this could happen a lot sooner than you expect!
So, for the good of your plumbing at home, don’t put your coffee grounds down the sink.
You’re just asking to have your sink blocked up if this is where you’re putting your coffee grounds!
What Can You Do With Coffee Grounds?
Ok, so everybody is in agreement now – putting coffee grounds down your sink is a terrible idea.
It’ll just increase the likelihood of a serious blockage in your pipes, which can result in a really expensive repair bill!
In this case, what exactly are you meant to do with your coffee grounds?
If you can’t put them down the sink, and can’t use the garbage disposal, what should you do to get rid of them?
Well, don’t worry, as we’re about to explore some great options!
Fertilizer
If you’ve got a garden, then great news, as you can get a lot of use out of your old coffee grounds in your garden!
For one thing, these old coffee grounds can often be used as fertilizer.
Coffee grounds don’t have all of the important chemicals that your garden needs, so don’t rely on them as the only way of fertilizing your garden.
And also be careful not to overdo your soil with coffee grounds! Due to the highly acidic nature, you could end up making the soil unfriendly towards your plants.
You should always be careful whenever you’re doing anything that can change the chemical makeup of your soil.
However, in moderate use, coffee grounds can be really useful for those looking for a way to fertilize their garden.
What’s more, some gardeners use their old coffee grounds as a way of repelling cats from their garden!
Composting
If you have too many old coffee grounds to use as a fertilizer, or you simply don’t want to make your garden soil too acidic through overdosing on coffee grounds, then another way you can use your garden to dispose of them is to put them to work in your compost heap!
Again, keen gardeners will be careful not to add too many coffee grounds to their compost heaps, as the chemical balance of a compost heap is very important when you consider that you’ll eventually be using the compost on your soil!
So, if you’re going to be composting your coffee grounds, you’ll need to make sure you’re adding plenty of other organic material to the pile too, so that it can all break down into a nice usable compost for your garden.
Composting is a fantastic way to get use out of a lot of organic products that have passed their normal use!
Biofuel
This is certainly a more modern option for dealing with your coffee grounds, but it could be a fantastic idea – and a great way of ensuring that they don’t go to waste!
It’s possible to recycle coffee grounds for use in biofuel.
Of course, this isn’t something you can do at home – you’ll need to have a company nearby that can take your old coffee grounds off your hands for reprocessing into biofuel.
These companies can’t be found everywhere, but as the years go by more and more companies might well start processing organic waste matter into biofuel!
So, for many, this isn’t a solution for now, but it’s certainly something to keep in mind over the coming years.
After all, it’s important to recycle and reuse as much as we can, so ideas like this are great ways to make sure we’re getting the most out of everything that we make and consume!
Trash
This certainly isn’t the absolute best option for disposing of your used coffee grounds, but it’s still a far better one than disposing of them down the sink.
If you don’t have any other option for disposing of them – for instance, if you don’t have a garden to compost for – then you can always take the simple route and throw them in the trash.
It’s not ideal, as preferably we’d trash as little as possible.
However, they’ve got to go somewhere, and putting them in the trash bin is a much more preferable thing to do than pouring them down the sink.
Of course, if you don’t have any use for your old coffee grounds in your garden, you can always ask your friends to see if one of them does!
Gardeners are often looking for any little thing that can help them out, and your coffee grounds might well be something one of your gardener friends could use on their compost heap!
Conclusion
Coffee grounds shouldn’t go down the sink – but that doesn’t mean that there’s no other place for them! Hopefully this guide has helped you decide what to do with your old coffee grounds!