Australia is one serious coffee loving nation. Latte, mocha, short black, long black, skinny cap…some of us struggle to get out of bed without the delicious smell of freshly made coffee wafting through the air! With the daily ritual of coffee making, comes oodles of leftover coffee grounds. Instead of just chucking them in the bin, here are some useful tips on how to reuse them for home cleaning. You’ll be surprised how many ways there are to use this ingredient, we are so obsessed with! Here are (in our opinion) 5 of the most useful tips.
1. Lingering food smells on your hands?
Just chopped some garlic? Peeled some prawns or put out the rubbish? Cooking is fun but often leaves our hands smelling rather unpleasant out of the kitchen. To get rid of any nasty odours, just get some coffee grounds and rub them between your hands. The natural oils in the grounds will be released, which will absorb whatever unwanted food smell you have. Then give your hands a rinse when you’re done.
2. Neutralize unpleasant fridge odours
Coffee grounds are great at odour absorption. To keep your fridge from smelling, simply fill a small bowl full of coffee grounds and place it at the rear of the fridge. Any moisture from the coffee will disappear with the cold temperatures, while giving off a pleasant fresh coffee aroma. To maintain, remember to refill the bowl with fresh coffee grounds fortnightly.
3. Fertilizer Friendly
Did you know your coffee grounds make a super fertiliser? Instead of adding to your rubbish bin, try sprinkling them lightly into your flower bed or pot of soil, mixing thoroughly. Potassium and phosphorous rich, this simple ingredient will do wonders for your plants, so after you mix it into the soil either place it at the roots of the plant or mix it with some water and spray straight onto the leaves.
4. Coffee grounds repel pet fleas
Animal fleas hate coffee grounds so if your pet is suffering from this nasty problem, and you are in search of a chemical free solution, try this tip. When you’ve completely shampooed your dog, rub the coffee grounds well into your dog’s coat, leave for 5 or 10 minutes and then rinse off. This will help free them of those nasty bugs!
5. Washing the dishes
It’s the weekend and you decided to throw a little dinner party but after a great night, you decide to hit the hay and leave the washing up till the morning. Faced with encrusted food on the plates and greasy pots and pans, washing up can seem an even bigger challenge the next day. A handy tip is to fill your sink with warm water, add 2-3 teaspoons of coffee grounds and leave everything to soak. After leaving for 30 minutes, grab a sponge and a brush and start washing up – the dishes should shine up no time at all. You can try the same tip when cleaning your stove too!
If you have any coffee grounds tips of your own you’d like to share, we’d love to hear your comments below!
[cta id=’253′]
