If you’re anything like me, or like most of us, then your morning coffee is a necessity. As is your midmorning coffee. Your lunch coffee. And sometimes, depending on the day had and the night ahead of you, an afternoon coffee doesn’t go astray too.
It’s 2019 and the push to be sustainable and waste savvy is strong. You’re amongst it. You get it. So you take your keepcup to the café. Or maybe you sit in and have it in a mug. Having an iced latte? “No straw thanks!” You’re on top of it. Single-use plastic was so 2018.
But what about the waste that your coffee produces even when you reuse your keepcup? Or when you have it in a mug at home? It might not seem like waste, but if it ends up in a plastic bag sitting in landfill, waste is exactly what it is.
I’m talking about the clump of coffee ground that is discarded with each cup of coffee. Those clumps, which can provide nutrients to your garden, increase plant growth, entice earth worms while repelling ants and slugs and provide conditioner for your soil.
A lot of the acidity of coffee is removed in the brewing process, leaving behind a green, eco-friendly material that is beneficial for compost or can be added straight to a garden.
Reusing coffee grounds is really a win-win situation – reducing waste going to landfill and supporting a more sustainable environment.
Here at The Good Dirt, we have loved working with a bunch of cafes on the Central Coast who have been bagging and giving away their coffee grounds for free to heaps of you sustainable locals.
Here what the legends at Bellyfish Café in Terrigal had to say….
We were looking for ways to reduce our waste but had no idea where to start. The Good Dirt gave us a waste plan which was easy to follow and came up with simple but productive suggestions to minimize our waste that goes to landfill. One of those that has taken off is bagging up our spent coffee grounds to give to our garden loving customers. At the end of the day, our staff bag the grounds back into the 1kg bags the coffee comes in as well as getting artistic and having fun drawing on them. The customers then grab them to add to their compost and gardens, effectively closing the loop and giving back to the earth, keeping the customers, staff and worms happy!
Like the sound of this? No matter who you are, we’ve got ways you can support local businesses that support our environment. But here’s the real catch… you can actually get rewarded for your efforts!
Our Plate to Paddock Sustainability Challenge is your ticket into this win-win situation.
Keep your green eyes peeled to our Instagram and Facebook to see all that is happening on the Central Coast with this movement.