Ground to Ground

Are you one of these people who needs a cup of coffee first thing in the morning, before you can even start thinking of the day ahead of you?  Or are you one of the many people who simply enjoy the pleasure of drinking a cuppa while catching up with a friend or relative.  Coffee has become one of the most popular beverages in the world with the world coffee consumption said to reach as high as 400 billion coffee cups a year.  As a non coffee drinker I have never thought much about “a good cuppa”, let alone think about the tons of coffee grounds that are produced on a daily basis and dumped in the local landfills.

According to the Ground to Ground initiative, approximately 20 grams of coffee grounds remains every time an espresso machine is used, which is then typically thrown into the bin, and ends up in landfill.  20 grams might not seem like a big amount, until you consider that 5000 lattes work out to about 100 kilos of used grounds, 50,000 lattes work out to about 1 tonne.  Think about the millions of people who stop into cafes or use an espresso machine at home at least once a day.  All those tens of millions of drinks make for many tonnes of landfill each and every day.

At Little Earth we have been learning that plants grow healthy in soil that is rich in nutrients.  We also know that nitrogen and carbon are some nutrients that plants need. When we make our compost we put lots of green matter and brown matter to make a yummy dirt for the plants.  Coffee grounds have a relatively high nitrogen content, making them an excellent “green” addition to the compost bin and a great offset against high carbon ‘brown’ additions such as leaves, straw, and cardboard.  They also happen to act like a slow release fertiliser when put directly into the soil, providing ongoing nitrogen input into the garden.  When applied to the soil coffee grounds will deter snails and slugs, while at the same time attract the very beneficial earthworm who just loves coffee!

What better way to reduce the amount of waste in our landfill and keep our garden healthy at the same time then using coffee grounds in our garden?  Coffee grounds have been used for compost and gardening for many centuries.  Our local coffee shop, BURST Drive-Thru-Café, delivers a bucket full of grounds every week to Little Earth.  The children sprinkle the coffee grounds on our veggie patches to ward of the slugs ad snails.  The leaves of our cauliflowers and cabbages are amazingly looking healthier, and no longer full of holes.  The children also sprinkle coffee around the other plants in the garden and around our native plants up the bank.  We also add coffee grounds to our compost and worm farm. It sure is a lot of fun spreading coffee grounds!

You may wonder why our garden smells like coffee sometimes?

We are learning that coffee ground is a good source of 
nitrogen for our soil.

We are also learning that coffee grounds keep snails and slugs away.

So now we are adding coffee grounds to our compost and garden.

What a great way to recycle coffee grounds and keep our garden healthy! And it is fun too!

Recycling coffee grounds would have to be one of the easiest ways to make a difference.  For more information about used coffee grounds and the Ground to Ground initiative, visit the Ground to Ground website.

Reusing coffee grounds in the garden is just one way of the plenty of usages it can have in a preschool.  More creative ideas about using coffee grounds tomorrow.

- Anja