American coffee consumption is around two cups daily per person, creating an $11 billion industry. Lots of coffee means lots of coffee grounds, and coffee grounds have many uses outside of providing extra energy in the morning. Many people have already found creative ways to recycle coffee grounds and reap significant benefits.
You can use coffee grounds for many things, like repelling mosquitos and boosting your skin care routine. The possibilities are all but endless. If you’ve ever wondered what to do with old coffee grounds, we’ve compiled a list of some of the most creative and practical things you can try.
Table of Contents
- 20 Creative Uses for Coffee Grounds
- What Are Used Coffee Grounds Good For?
- Promote Your Coffee Brand With Joe’s Garage Coffee
20 Creative Uses for Coffee Grounds
Coffee is the second-most-consumed beverage in the U.S. after water. However, coffee grounds are good for more than making the mug of Joe that 66% of Americans enjoy every morning. We’ve ranked coffee ground uses to find the most creative way to recycle your coffee grounds and give them a new lease on life.
20. Revitalize Your Garden
Coffee grounds are good for plants — you can use them in your garden to change it from drab to flourishing. There are many uses for coffee grounds in your garden, including the following:
- Compost: Coffee grounds help break down organic matter, making them a fantastic addition to compost. They’ll also add nitrogen, potassium, calcium, magnesium, and other minerals to your compost.
- Fertilizer: Adding coffee grounds to your soil gives your plants many essential nutrients. Coffee grounds can also help absorb heavy metals that could be present in your soil. Mixing coffee grounds in your soil also helps it hold water, keeping it moist for longer.
- Worms: Coffee grounds attract worms, which are great for aerating the soil in your garden.
- Carrots: Coffee grounds are a carrot’s favorite food. Add some to your carrot or radish crop for larger, sweeter vegetables and a better yield.
19. Keep Insects and Pests at Bay
Another thing you can do with coffee grounds is use them to repel pests in your house and garden. Once you’ve enjoyed your morning coffee, use the grounds to send the following pests packing:
- Insects: Some compounds in coffee can be toxic to insects like mosquitos, cockroaches, fruit flies, and other members of the insect family.
- Slugs: The acidity in coffee grounds is particularly unattractive to slugs, so sprinkle them around your plants to keep them from becoming slug food.
- Cats: If you have feral cats that cause problems in your neighborhood, spread coffee grounds outside to keep them at bay.
18. Remove Unwanted Odors
Coffee grounds contain nitrogen and carbon compounds, which have the power to remove unwanted smells. In other words, coffee grounds could become your best friend in fighting odors in your home. Use your used coffee grounds to help remove the following odors:
- Fridge or freezer odors: Place a bowl of coffee grounds in your fridge or freezer and say goodbye to unwanted odors.
- Home and car spaces: Put coffee grounds in old socks, pantyhose, or other fabric containers and place them in your car, drawers, and gym bag.
- Cooking: Use wet coffee grounds to scrub your hands and remove the raw onion smell.
- Pet odors: Put a few spoons of dried coffee grounds in a coffee filter and secure the top with rubber bands. Make a few bundles and leave them on pet stains overnight to remove the odor.
17. Clean Your Appliances
Coffee grounds are naturally abrasive, perfect for removing dirt and grime from hard-to-clean surfaces. They also have antibacterial properties so you can clean and sanitize surfaces using them.
Using coffee grounds to clean metal objects like sinks and cookware provides an excellent alternative to chemical cleaners. Mix them with dishwashing liquid to add an extra shine to your cookware and cutlery.
16. Reinvigorate Your Furniture
When your wood furniture looks a little tired, you can reuse coffee grounds to reduce the appearance of unsightly scuff marks. Rub a thick paste of coffee grounds and water onto scuffed areas with a cotton swab. Let it sit for up to 10 minutes before wiping it off.
The coffee dyes the freshly exposed areas a darker brown, and you can apply the mixture until you find the right shade.
15. Enhance Your Cooking
We all love drinking coffee, but have you ever considered cooking with it? Outside of preparing delicious beverages, you can use coffee grounds in the kitchen in the following ways:
- Tenderizing meat: Coffee contains natural enzymes and acids that act as meat tenderizers, and its acidic nature can enhance the meaty flavor. Just add coffee grounds to your dry rub to enjoy the effects, and you’ll give your red meats a rich, smoky flavor.
- Marinade: You can rebrew used coffee grounds, allow it to cool, and marinade meat before cooking for the same effect.
14. Boost Your Skincare Routine
Coffee grounds have a coarse texture that is perfect for a natural exfoliant. Mix your dry coffee grounds with a bit of water or coconut oil and scrub your skin, or mix with a little honey to target your lips. In addition, caffeine has potent antioxidant properties that help protect your skin from pollutants and sun damage.
Use caffeine to make a natural alternative to body scrub. Make a simple coffee and Himalayan salt body scrub by combining ½ cup each of coffee grounds and Himalayan salt with ¼ cup of coconut oil and 2 tablespoons of water.
13. Make Ice Cream
You can make delicious coffee-infused ice cream with coffee grounds and heavy cream. Add a little vanilla or almond essence for extra flavor, and put it in an ice cream maker for a delectable summer treat.
12. De-ice in Winter
If you live in an icy area, save your coffee grounds in the warmer months and bring them out to de-ice your driveway in winter. Used coffee grounds are nitrogen rich — excellent for melting ice. Salt has been the go-to in the past, but using it poses a risk to some plants and exotic species and may pollute groundwater in the area.
Coffee poses no risk to the surrounding environment, and its rough texture also creates an extra foothold to prevent slipping.
11. Make Coffee Scented Candles
As uses for used coffee grounds go, this idea is a creative and fun way to recycle, especially if you enjoy candlemaking. If you’ve never tried, making coffee-scented candles could be an excellent opportunity to take up a new hobby. Natural coffee grounds give an authentic scent and aesthetic to candles.
As the candles burn, the heat from the flame releases a rich coffee aroma when the grounds are exposed.
10. Treat Your Hair
We’ve made it to the top 10. Coffee grounds are an effective natural hair product with several benefits, including the following:
- Exfoliate your scalp: Adding coffee grounds to your hair care routine can help remove product buildup and dead skin cells.
- Stimulate hair growth: The caffeine in coffee grounds helps with hair growth and stimulates blood flow in your scalp.
- Deepen dark colors: Bring some richness to brown shades with a coffee ground dye job.
- Remove hair product residue: Many hair products contain chemicals that dry out your hair when they accumulate. Mix some coffee grounds with your regular hair products — product residue will attach to the grounds instead of your scalp.
9. Reduce the Appearance of Cellulite
Cellulite affects between 85-90% of adult women, and applying topical caffeine in the form of coffee grounds could help to break down fat cells and increase blood flow to the affected area, reducing the appearance of cellulite. Use your homemade body scrub and scrub the affected areas once a day.
While coffee grounds can help reduce the appearance of cellulite, they can’t remove it. Caffeine dehydrates the cells and temporarily makes cellulite less visible.
8. Turn Them into a Natural Air Freshener
Suppose you like a good air freshener in your home or car but prefer something natural or recyclable. Coffee grounds can provide a solution. Find a suitable container and combine your used coffee grounds with vanilla or almond essence and essential oils. Hang your container in your car or at home for a delicious coffee scent all day.
7. Clean Your Fireplace
Having a fireplace is lovely until it comes time to clean it. Luckily, coffee grounds can come to the rescue. If you spread them across the ashes, they add moisture to the soot and prevent it from drifting into the rest of the room. The grounds also add weight to the ashes, making them easier to scoop up and remove from the fireplace.
6. Give Your Pet a Flea-Free Existence
Flea removal is an essential element of pet ownership and often requires harsh chemicals. However, dry coffee grounds provide an all-natural alternative to keeping your pets flea-free. However, coffee grounds can be toxic to dogs, so rub the grounds through their fur after shampooing, rinse, and remove any excess while your pet’s coat dries as usual.
5. Treat Dark Circles
We’re down to the top five, and the following uses for coffee grounds are getting increasingly creative.
The skin under your eyes is one of the first places we notice signs of aging or lack of sleep. Coffee grounds have high caffeine and antioxidant content, which can reduce dark circles under your eyes and prevent the signs of aging. In addition, coffee is anti-inflammatory and stimulates blood circulation in the area, reducing swelling.
Apply a paste of coffee grounds and water or coconut oil to the area beneath your eyes. Let it sit for about 10 minutes before removing it. The lack of harsh chemicals means you can repeat this process daily.
4. Grow Mushrooms
Mushrooms are notoriously challenging to grow, as they require specific conditions to thrive, including a nutrient-rich substrate layer. Coffee grounds make an ideal substrate, as they’re full of nutrients mushrooms love. The brewing process also provides sterilization, speeding up the growing process.
3. Enhance Your Fishing Experience
Coffee grounds are a helpful tool for avid anglers. They keep your worms happy for longer, and certain fish are attracted to coffee-scented worms. Mix a cup of used coffee grounds with your bait worms, and you might finally land that elusive big catch.
Even if you’re not into fishing, adding coffee grounds to your soil will attract worms and keep the area healthy and aerated.
2. Brew Beer
Coffee is a popular option in craft breweries. It’s an excellent addition to stouts and porters, adding more depth and color to the profile. If you love the occasional home-brew, use coffee grounds to make cold brew, and add it to your beer for a deeper flavor.
1. Create Incredible Artwork
If you’ve ever spilled coffee on your clothes, you already have an idea of how you can use it as a dye. However, this unique ability gives us the most creative use for coffee grounds on our list.
Commercial dyes contain chemicals, and coffee grounds make a fantastic natural alternative. You can rewet used coffee grounds for art in several ways, including the following:
- Color various fabrics, cellophane, and paper.
- Give paper and other materials a vintage look.
- Cover stains on your clothing and linens.
- Dye Easter eggs.
- Add richness to dark hair.
- Create sepia watercolor paintings.
What Are Used Coffee Grounds Good For? Coffee Grounds FAQ
Recycling your coffee grounds can save you money, benefit the environment, and yield some excellent results, making it a process worth looking into. If you’d like to repurpose your used coffee grounds, we’ve answered some frequently asked questions to help you get started.
Can You Reuse Coffee Grounds?
Yes, you can. You can reuse your coffee grounds to brew a second cup of Joe. However, it’s best not to reuse them more than twice to avoid a burnt taste in your morning coffee.
Will Coffee Grounds Keep Ants Away?
Ants are not big fans of the smell of coffee, so sprinkle some coffee grounds around the perimeter of your garden and any areas you’d like your ant friends to avoid.
Do Coffee Grounds Repel Mosquitos?
In a sense, yes. Coffee grounds have a strong scent that masks the human scent that attracts mosquitoes. You can also burn coffee grounds to enhance their aroma, which will have a similar effect to citronella.
Do House Plants Like Coffee Grounds?
Like garden plants, coffee grounds are an excellent fertilizer for house plants. House plants love coffee grounds due to their high nitrogen and micronutrient content.
Should You Put Coffee Grounds on Your Lawn?
You should. Your lawn is another plant that benefits from the nitrogen, phosphorous, and other trace minerals in coffee grounds. The coffee grounds themselves create a slow delivery system, which is a significant benefit over synthetic fertilizers’ quick release. Your lawn turf has longer to absorb the goodness in coffee grounds, making it more resilient.
Promote Your Coffee Brand with Joe’s Garage Coffee
Whatever your relationship with coffee, you can get more than a delicious cup of energy with coffee grounds. Joe’s Garage Coffee is here to help you get coffee drinkers and recyclers to favor your brand with a suite of services designed to promote your coffee brand in all the right places.
We believe in caring for our environment and offer products like compostable cups to ensure users can reuse their coffee grounds in as many creative ways as they like. Contact us to learn more about how we can build your coffee brand exposure today!
