Recycle That Coffee: Cool Uses For Old Grounds

Many of us have seen this before but we thought some of these were less than intuitive and wanted to share. Coffee grounds can be put to a multitude of uses after they’ve energized your morning. Although their effect as waste on the environment isn’t as detrimental as something like Styrofoam or toxic mining runoff, they can be used in lieu of other commonly used products hence reducing your footprint. As a coffee junky I found these tips innovative and exciting. The helpful properties of this bean extend beyond your morning mood adjustment.

* Coffee can be used as a natural dye, simply boil and dip in anything you want to turn brown
* Course grounds can be used as an exfoliating facial scrub
* Use them to scrub grimy or stinking hands
* Used in moderation coffee is a great additive to compost piles or even potting soil
* Besides scrubbing your face and hands coffee grounds work great on greasy cookware

Read the rest from one of my favorite sites, Green Upgrader.

For the Chinese, the bamboo is a symbol for longevity — and how can it not be? At a record of 130+ feet of growth, the bamboo is known as the fastest growing plant on Earth. Some species even grow up to 3 inches over a 24 hour period. Imagine spending a day just watching a bamboo plant grow — though there are conditions for this kind of growth.

It’s 99% of a Giant Panda’s diet. One of Thomas Edison’s first commercially successful incandescent lamps used a filament of carbonized bamboo. Alexander Graham Bell made the first phonograph needle out of bamboo!

There are also several benefits to growing your own bamboo plant. Here are a few:

Bamboo releases 35% more oxygen than trees. Wait, isn’t the bamboo a plant? How come? Because the bamboo is made up of more parts water than normal trees, it naturally releases more oxygen.

Over one billion people in the world live in bamboo houses. Surprising, huh? Because of the bamboo’s flexibility, combined with its flexibility, it can be used as a material for building several useful objects. In places where building materials would cost much, bamboo, as a plant, is used as a substitute for building everything from garden décor, souvenirs, fences, bridges, canoes — to even chopsticks!

Bamboo is edible! Aside from using it as a building material, some parts of the bamboo, you could actually eat! The bamboo shoots are used in several Asian dishes and is available in supermarkets in canned form.