For all you coffee lovers out there, we need to take responsibility for our addiction! I love the daily ritual of my morning coffee making process. It’s the first thing I think about. Reaching for the coffee jar, switching on the hot water jug, measuring out the delicious aromatic coffee grinds into the plunger and adding the water…… doing my energy exercises while I wait for the coffee to steep, then plunging and pouring….aah, what a pleasure! I have two cups of coffee, in short sharp succession….and sit quietly in my massage chair and contemplate the day. Kinda like coffee meditation.
So, Sustainably speaking, LOOOOONG after that cup of coffee, the earth is still having to deal with the packaging our beloved addiction came in. Over the years, I have devised certain ways to deal with this “waste”. By the way, spent coffee grounds are fantastic in the garden compost! We even collect coffee grounds from coffee shops and add their masses of grounds to the grateful worms in the compost. Our son’s girlfriend, Rachel, happens to work for a local coffee roastery, so we also gratefully collect their coffee bean husks……which we sprinkle in layers in the compost bin in the kitchen. It keeps the smell down and am sure is a great nutritious addition to the compost.
Protecting my student’s privacy, I have included a picture of the coffee sack handbag she made in a two hour tutorial. She now knows how to deal with her coffee waste packaging, and plans to “gift” her family similar handbags using her “trash”. It’s wonderful when we can look beyond conventional “trash” and find uses for them. I have made several coffee “trash” bags in the past, even gifting friends some of these creations! As the old saying goes, literally, “One man’s trash is another man’s treasure!”
I have had some comments from people saying my bags look like they’ve been made in Africa! Well, that’s because Africans are resourceful and look at trash in a creative way…”What can I do with this?” I wish we would all do this more often, less garbage to fill our landfills with!
Even though I make many Coffee Pouch Creations, I still have a HUGE bag of pouches awaiting re-invention, such is the nature of the addiction! So how about a lunch bag? Fabric on the outside (actually a leg of some jeans that died a threadbare death and became shorts), lined with coffee pouches. Environmentally sound! Simply need to wipe the inside with a wet cloth and dry it, no more plastic wrap necessary!
So many ideas… so little time! We also inherited some hessian coffee sacks once time and made one into a shopping tote. My daughter gifted me a cool fully lined kitchen apron made out of an old hessian coffee sack. How awesome its that? They are available for sale through Excelso Roasters on 3rd Avenue, Tauranga.
This year, we have had endless problems with birds scratching up all my newly planted seedlings in the veggie garden. I have tried and experimented with every kind of deterrent I could think of and then my husband suggested I lay a hessian coffee sack over the veg bed and plant into that. I cut crosses into the fully open hessian sacks and then planted my seedlings …. hey, presto! It works! I think we may have stumbled onto a really good thing! Not only does it deter the birds from scratching, but it stops snails and suppresses most weeds! Voila! And I’m guessing it will just bio-degrade after a few months, adding to the soil.
So you see, I justify this coffee addiction of mine, by making use of the product and all it’s forms of incarnations.
I can’t wait for my next cup of coffee tomorrow morning! Bring it on! The things we do for love!
Ciao, Jizzy
