Ways to Reuse Coffee Grounds

This post may contain affiliate links. Read our disclosure policy here.

Ways to Reuse Coffee Grounds

If you’re anything like me, you go through a lot of coffee grounds in a year. Of course, like most things, coffee grounds can be given another life after they have served their original purpose. Instead of throwing them away, there are so many ways you can reuse them! I’ve taken some time to write down some of my favorite ways to reuse coffee grounds for you all, and I hope you find them useful!

Ways to Reuse Coffee Grounds

Fertilizer
One of the most popular ways to reuse old coffee grounds is as a fertilizer for your garden. Just sprinkle the old grounds over the soil in your garden before, or after planting, and your plants will thank you! Coffee Grounds work very well for a fertilizer, especially if your soil could use some acidity.

Compost
Along the same lines, coffee grounds do very well in your compost. They can actually balance out the pH levels in the soil, making your compost high-quality soil!. They also help to reduce the odors of the other food products while compost is happening.

Trash Can Deodorizer
Speaking of reducing odors, you can fill a cheese cloth, or an old pair of pantyhose with some used coffee grounds, and attach it to the inside of the lid of your garbage can. This works better to reduce foul smells than any odor-reducing trash bags ever did.

Coffee Scrub
If you want to make your skin silky smooth, just use your old coffee grounds to exfoliate with. Add them to a little coconut oil, and rub them all over your skin, wherever dry patches appear and watch your skin glow. Here’s a simple Coffee Scrub Recipe to start with.

Coffee Crafting
If you are in the habit of doing crafts with your kids, coffee makes an excellent medium! You can use it, with a little hot water, to make a pretty dye for Easter Eggs, material, and the like, Coffee grounds also make awesome, realistic dirt for 3-d art projects. Rub a little coconut oil on a child’s face, and sprinkle on a few coffee grounds on for a realistic looking beard!

Coffee Grounds

Hand Deodorizer
If you work with things like garlic, onions, or cilantro often, you will notice that even after washing, your hands can contain the odor of the items you touched for a long period of time. Rub your hands with used coffee grounds to get rid of the lingering smell.

Pest Repellant
Most bugs, or cats, don’t like the smell or taste of coffee grounds. Sprinkle them liberally around the foundation of your house to help keep bugs at bay. In your garden or flower beds, sprinkle coffee grounds around the borders to keep cats and pesky bugs out.

Hair Oil Treatment
If your hair needs a little oil treatment, simply rub a handful of coffee grounds through your hair after washing to help replenish its natural oils. It will make your hair light and shiny, and can give it a volume boost as well!

 

Coffee grounds have so many uses besides making that wonderful liquid we drink to get ourselves going each morning! How do you plan to reuse your used coffee grounds? If you have any other ways to reuse coffee grounds, let us know in the comments. We would love for you to share!

Print Friendly, PDF & Email

Support Little House Living by Sharing This

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

21 Comments

  1. Be careful using coconut oil in a shower scrub… You should not let it go down your drain! I have a friend who is a plumber and more and more drains are become clogged with hair and things that get trapped because the coconut oil solidified far in their pipes. I switched to using Avocado oil for shower scrubs. Also coffee grounds, brown sugar and avocado oil is a great scrub to reduce cellulite and helps tremendously with those ‘chicken bumps’ on the back of arms and various places?. Nice article and blessings to all!

  2. For even better coffee grounds…..add egg shells! Running a chicken farm, I have lots of eggs. I wash the shells and add them to the coffee grounds. Makes for a very smooth cup o joe! Plus, it makes the grounds even better for fertilizer. Helps to re mineralized your soil!

  3. I periodically flush them down the toilet as they are supposed to be very good for septic tank health.

  4. For years, my mother (and then myself) put the used coffee grounds down the kitchen or bathroom sink drains. Doing this prevented us from EVER having a clogged or slow-running drain. Apparently, it acts like little scrubbers or granules that break up grease or other debris and allows it to be flushed through the system so as a daily maintenance treatment, it worked fabulously. However, in recent years I have been advised against doing this if you have a septic system as I am told it affects the tile bed.

  5. Thanks for all the other coffee grounds tips. I use them currently to sprinkle in the garden but you’ve given lots of other ideas. Like the idea of using grounds to repeal bugs! Visiting from BFF Link Party.

  6. I really like the crafting ideas. I had never thought of using coffee grounds for crafting. Tha hair replenisher is also another great idea. Thanks for sharing these with us. Pinning.

  7. When I saw the title of your post, I was instantly intrigued. Such a creative list! I’ve only had one use for coffee most of my life – and it wakes me up (on most mornings that is 😉 ). But as a crafter, I really like the idea of using it as a dye. Thanks for all the tips!

  8. Great tips. Some of them I have never heard of before so I’m definitely pinning this for later.

  9. Neat ideas you have here! 🙂

    I would love for you to share this with my Facebook Group for recipes, crafts, tips, and tricks.

    Thanks for joining Cooking and Crafting with J & J!

  10. I never knew you could use coffee grounds in your hair! I love to make cold brew coffee so I always have grounds easily accessible. I am going to give this a try! Thanks
    visiting from Eighteen 25 Show and Tell

  11. I always compost my coffee grounds and mix them into the garden. I am going to have to try sprinkling them around the edge, great tip! Thanks!

  12. Some unusual ideas here I’m keen to try, I’d never thought coffee could be good for your hair! #InspireMeMonday

  13. What great ideas! I never knew you could use coffee grounds for so many things. I love the idea for pest control! Will try that. Thanks for linking up at Merry Monday this week. 🙂

  14. We compost our coffee grounds into our compost bin. So many good uses. This post will be one of my Features at the new Merry Monday party. Thanks so much for sharing with us.

  15. Reading your coffee uses I remembered my mother doing many of these things, the egg shells in the coffee as well as the compost, insect/fertilizer plant fix and down the drain. Thanks for the tips, and the memories.