12 Ways You Can Reuse Your Coffee After You Brewed It

Do you feel guilty when you see all the coffee grounds that you throw away on a daily basis?

Even though those grounds have made delicious coffee, there’s more life in them yet.

You don’t have to feel guilty about putting them in the trash anymore because you can make use of them in surprising ways.

What’s an easy way to use coffee grounds?

You can easily make use of used coffee grounds to nourish your garden, such as by sprinkling them around plants, but there are so many other ways in which to make use of those gritty granules!

Here are 12 uses for used coffee grounds that are really simple.

Let’s start with some uses for the garden, followed by how you can use coffee grounds in the home, and even in DIY beauty recipes!

Contents

How To Reuse Coffee Grounds In The Garden

Some people insist that using coffee grounds in the garden is great for soil, while others say it makes the soil too acidic – but the latter can work in your favour as we’ll see later in this section!

Here are some easy ways to bring used coffee grounds to life in the garden.

Sprinkle Coffee Grounds In Your Compost

Here’s an easy way to start making better use of coffee grounds – put them in your compost!

The smell of coffee released by the grounds will help to keep your compost smelling fresh, while the grounds will also regulate the compost’s pH levels.

But most interesting of all, coffee grounds are high in nitrogen, so they’re beneficial for compost, as Oregon State University reports.

Use Them As Bug Repellent

There’s nothing more irritating than being swamped by bugs when you’re trying to enjoy those warm summer nights in the garden or when you’re working on your flower beds.

Here’s how to make your own bug repellent: sprinkle coffee grounds around your patio or put them in bowls and keep them close by so that the bugs will steer clear of you.

If you want to go one step further, try burning coffee grounds. Put coffee grounds in an aluminum foil plate, then add a few drops of BBQ lighter fluid.

Light it with a match so that the coffee grounds can start burning. Place a damp towel over the fire.

This will ensure that the coffee grounds can smoke for longer. This is a good trick to repel mosquitos specifically, as Hunker reports.

Nourish Your Plants

Coffee grounds can also be used to keep certain plants healthy. Which plants? Plants that like acidic soil!

So, sprinkle coffee grounds in flower beds where you’ll be growing plants that love soil acidity, such as hydrangeas and azaleas.

How To Reuse Coffee Grounds Indoors

You can clean the house with used coffee grounds and even bake with them!

Let’s check out some of the best ways in which to reuse those coffee granules in practical ways that will save you money.

Unblock Your Drain

Is your drain a little smelly or blocked?

You can use coffee grounds as a DIY method to clear it up.

This is because coffee grounds have a gritty texture that will loosen up drains, plus their scent can help to mask bad odors.

Simply boil a pot of water and put your coffee grounds in them, then pour this down the drain.

Bake With Them

You might not think that using your used coffee grounds in baking recipes could be a good thing, but they can definitely be used to flavour your sweet treats and you won’t even be able to tell the difference between using fresh coffee grounds and used ones.

This is mainly because a little goes a long way when it comes to coffee flavors in dessert.

An example can be seen when making frozen desserts such as semifreddo.

Used coffee grounds that are dissolved in warm water and then added to the dessert will give it a delicious flavour – and you only need to make a quarter-cup of coffee with used granules to give the dessert a lovely coffee taste.

Make Delicious Coffee Ice Cubes

When you’ve used your coffee grounds to brew a cup of coffee, mix them with water that you’ll then put in an ice tray.

Freeze it overnight and you’ll have delicious coffee-flavored ice cubes to enjoy the next day!

Clean The House With Coffee

Sometimes you want a cleaning product that will scrub away dirt, which is why DIY product recipes usually make use of ingredients such as baking soda.

But, because they’re nice and gritty, you can also use coffee granules for this purpose. If you want an even more powerful scrubbing action, mix the coffee granules with baking soda to remove stains.

Let The Kids Have Fun With Them

Since coffee granules are brown, they can easily stain things like paper and cardboard.

That’s what makes them so great for kids to use in their arts and crafts projects. Best of all, they’re a totally natural dye that won’t expose them to harmful toxins.

Repair Your Scuffed Wooden Furniture

Since it will stain well, used coffee grounds can be an easy and natural way to fill in any scuffs on your wooden furniture so that they’re not visible.

All you need to do is mix a tablespoon of used coffee grounds with a teaspoon of olive oil. With the use of a cotton swab, apply this coffee mixture to your wooden furniture.

It’s always wise to test this mixture on one small part of the furniture before going ahead with the whole project just to see how well it fares.

Safely Dispose Of Expired Medication

If you need to dispose of medicines in the house but your area or region doesn’t have any drug take-back sites, you can follow these steps, as outlined by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA):

Take the medicine and mix it with used coffee grounds. Keep the medicine in its natural form by not crushing the tablets.
Then, put this mixture into a sealed plastic bag.
Throw this bag into your trash at home.

Note: Always check if the medication package insert gives you other guidelines to follow for disposing of it safely.

Are There DIY Beauty Hacks That Make Use Of Used Coffee Grounds?

You can definitely make use of used coffee grounds in some DIY recipes to help to treat your skin.

Here are some ideas you should try the next time you brew yourself a cup of delicious coffee.

Make Your Own Body Scrub

It’s essential to exfoliate your skin at least once a week so that you remove dead skin cells from the skin’s surface and allow new cells to grow.

When that dead layer of skin is removed, your skin will be soft and glow.

You can make your own DIY body scrub with the use of used coffee grounds that have been mixed with coconut oil or jojoba oil.

Put it in a jar and then scrub it into your skin when you’re in the shower.

Wash Your Hands With Coffee Grounds

Don’t you hate it when you’ve finished chopping garlic and no matter how many times you wash your hands you just can’t eliminate that pungent odor?

Used coffee grounds can come in handy, if you’ll pardon the pun.

Since they neutralize odors, you should rub coffee granules on your hands when they’re damp and give them a good scrub before washing them with water.

You could even make your own soap bar with the use of used coffee grounds.

This DIY soap tutorial results in beautiful dark coffee granule soap that you’ll love cleaning your hands with after cooking or other tasks.

Just make sure you keep these bars on a soap dish to prevent them from staining surfaces. Enjoy!

Conclusion

You love making a cup of coffee in the morning, but what do you do with the coffee grounds afterwards?

If you throw them into the bin, it’s time to make better use of them.

As we’ve seen in this article, used coffee grounds have various uses that you shouldn’t be missing out on.

From using them in the garden and home, to enhancing your beauty treatments with them, you’ll never see used coffee grounds in the same way again.