Many Cafeology customers are interested to know if and how they can use coffee grounds in their compost. Hopefully this will answer some of those questions. The information here is just a few of the basic points to help many keen gardeners use large amounts of coffee grounds in their composting.

Coffee grounds (also know as spent coffee) are a very good addition to your composting efforts. They would be considered a "green" or nitrogen source. C/N ratio about 20:1.

While it is widley thought that they are acidic it has been shown that most of this acidity is removed in the brewing process. Used grounds are essentially neutral and composting them with other materials will buffer any minor residual acidity.

Anecdotal evidence suggests that worms are very attracted to them so you can feel free to use them in vermiposting (worm bin) situations if you desire.

It is also widely held that placing coffee grounds under acid loving plants is beneficial, but as evidence has shown, this may be a myth since the spent grounds are neutral. You can do it as you wish but at best it is a good soil conditioner and will feed the worm population. If you do place grounds in this way be sure to incorporate them well into the soil.

The amount of grounds you would want to add to a compost pile is dependant on how many you may have available to you. If you were just using the amount that an average household might generate you should have no concerns but some of you may have access to larger volumes and in that case you should limit the percentage to no more than 25% of the volume of the pile.

Cafeology now encourage all our customers to recyle their spent coffee by offering large adhesive labels to seal the old bags and allow customers to take the coffee away.

For addidtional labels please contact Cafeology on 0870 011 9441.