Coffee Grounds Compost

We often get asked for greener coffee solutions including products that are recyclable.  Sadly with some of the capsule machines it is not always easy to recycle the spent drinks capsules and not all disposable cups are recyclable.  One option that we use here in the office is a bean to cup machine (we use the Jura Giga X7 as our office coffee machine).  The only waste product from this is the spent coffee grounds.  I have done a bit of research on the Internet and there seems to be a consensus of opinion suggesting this is a great product for the garden .  Following this I thought that rather than just “talking the talk” I would also “walk the walk”.  As such I have been using the spent coffee grounds on my garden as a mulch around my plants and the effects look very good indeed(so far).  I have only been doing this for a couple of months and perhaps I need to reserve judgement before calling this an unqualified success but the plants seem very happy with this addition to the soil.  Another approach may be to add the grounds to your compost heap.  This does dilute the affect somewhat which may give your garden a more balanced soil than only using spent grounds.  I have read that coffee grounds are slightly acidic although the brewing process seems to take most of the acidity out of them so mixing them with the rest of your compost may be the best approach just in case.

Whichever option you take this is proof that you can have an environmentally friendly office coffee machine with the added benefit of a fantastic garden.  As the year wears on I will report back on how well my garden gets on with regular use of these coffee grounds.  I will also get some feed back from other members of our staff that are using them on their gardens.

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