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Coffee: An Easy Start to Composting
Our office basically runs on coffee. We like to start our day with a fresh brewed cup of Green Mountain coffee. Yeah I know it’s shameless product placement, but they didn’t pay me for it. I just like their coffee.
We try to use organic, fair-trade coffee to be responsible, and as always we encourage reusable filters and coffee mugs. Regardless of what kind of coffee you are using or how your making it though, there is always the problem of disposing of the coffee grounds. Now you ardent environmentalists are jumping up and down scream compost, but what do you do if there is not one available.
We would always encourage you to start a compost pile; but if you don’t have a compost bin available, a flower garden is the next best thing. That’s right just find a flower bed and dump away.
Now some concern has been raised as to the acidity of the coffee grounds. The grounds have less acid after brewing, and unless you are downing five pots a day, it shouldn’t be a problem for the plants. If you are really worried about it, try planting acid loving plants like azaleas or rhododendrons.
An added benefit to fertilizing your plants is that coffee acts as a natural slug repellent. Now you’ve fertilized and peticided (is that a word?) using something that you’d normally just throw away. You can even dump the left over coffee from the pot in the garden.
If you start getting too much acid, you can always return them to a compost bin. This will lower the acid level.
Try it today, and let us know how it goes. If you have other easy ideas, send us it an email.
Wednesday, December 3rd, 2008 at 10:06 am and is in Blog. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS feed.
Zach says:
March 2, 2009 at 8:53 amCan you give a pitch on what’s “responsible” about buying fair-trade organic coffee?
Education says:
March 2, 2009 at 11:02 amZach, the reason I call fair-trade organic coffee responsible is that it accepts ‘real’ costs for the product we’re using. Organic goods do not use pesticides and other additives in the growing process that have a detrimental impact on our environment. Fair-trade products require that workers who harvest or produce the goods are paid fair-market value. This prevents the people of developed countries from taking advantage of their less developed neighbors. I believe the organic fair-trade coffee represents the true costs of producing that commodity; whereas other coffees externalize the costs.