Reuse Coffee Grounds

With the world jumping aboard the green movement, it's important to think about how we can recycle everything that we use. While recycling aluminum, plastic, and paper is generally simple, other items may not seem so straight forward to reuse. That is where a bit of innovation and forward thinking comes into play. Almost anything can be recycled, even your used coffee grounds. Read through the steps below to make the most of your prized breakfast beverage left-overs.

DIY Life provides an extensive list of uses for leftover coffee grounds:

1. Soften and add shine to hair. When washing your hair, rub coffee grounds through hair and rinse.
2. Use coffee grounds as an exfoliant. Pat on and massage over skin, rinse.
3. Make temporary homemade tattoos with henna and coffee grounds.
4. Fertilize plants. Old coffee grounds are nutrient-rich for plants that thrive in an acidic soil.
5. Increase your carrot and radish harvest by mixing seeds with dry coffee grounds before planting the seeds.
6. Use coffee grounds to repel ants.
7. Keep cats from using your garden as a kitty box by spreading used coffee grounds and orange peels throughout flower beds.
8. Deodorize a freezer. Place a bowl with used coffee grounds in the freezer to remove unwanted odors. Add a few drops of vanilla to coffee grounds.
9. Rub coffee grounds on hands to rid them of smells from chopping or cutting up pungent foods.
10. Make a used coffee grounds sachet. Fill old nylons or cheescloth with dry used coffee grounds. Hang in closets or place inside shoes to absorb odors.
11. When you need an abrasive cleaner, coffee grounds can be used. Be careful of any surfaces that might stain.
12. Remove furniture scratches with wet coffee grounds.
13. Sprinkle wet coffee grounds over the ashes inside fireplace/stove to keep from becoming engulfed in the plume of dust ashes create when you remove them. Then, throw the mix of ashes and coffee grounds into your garden.
14. Dye fabric, paper or Easter eggs. Add used coffee grounds to warm water and let sit to create a dye.
15. After you give your dog a bath, rub coffee grounds through his/her coat. Coffee grounds are said to repel fleas.
16. Keep bait worms alive by mixing coffee grounds into the soil before you add worms. Fish are apparently attracted to the scent of coffee.
17. Grow mushrooms from used coffee grounds.