Why You Should Never Put Coffee Grounds Down The Garbage Disposal

Of the many modern marvels that can be found in your kitchen, none are so convenient or loud as your garbage disposal. It's like your own personal everything-shredder that can be used to get rid of all the nasty stuff that can end up in your sink without clogging your drains. At times it may seem like the unstoppable fix-all for any kind of inconvenient trash, but just throwing things down there willy nilly can actually end up doing quite a bit of harm. 

Coffee grounds in particular are no good. Garbage disposals are nothing but some fast spinning blades meant to break up stray bits of food that may clog your sink, and they do nothing for the pipes under the sink and throughout your kitchen and house. According to The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, coffee grounds in small stray amounts can be okay, but too many can cause buildup in your pipes, with unpleasant consequences.

Even after they pass through your garbage disposal, coffee grounds can very easily stick to your pipes and cause a clog somewhere in the many twists and turns of your plumbing, which can then result in some very expensive repair costs, as well as a couple of unhappy days without working plumbing. Instead, coffee grounds can be disposed of in the trash, simple and easy.

You could also use your grounds more creatively. According to How to Dispose, coffee grounds don't lose all their minerals during brewing, and they can be mixed into soil to provide your garden with some nutrient-dense fertilizer. Recycle a Cup recommends using coffee grounds in your composting for the same reason. Even after brewing, coffee grounds are particularly rich in nitrogen, which is an essential element in fertilizers and a key component of healthy soil. All you need to do is mix the grounds into your soil or your compost and let it invigorate your garden as coffee invigorates you.