Use A Coffee Filter To Save Coffee Grounds Before They Head Down The Drain

Coffee grounds have more than a few great uses around the house, from getting rid of cigarette smells in your car and deodorising your fridge to touching up furniture scuffs and more. The trick is to make sure you save them for use later. If you have a coffee filter handy, here’s one way to save them before they head down the drain.

Why you would have coffee filters to spare (the Redditor that submitted the tip says he gets them from the dollar store and uses them for other things, so we can get down with that idea) and drink from a coffee plunger (which requires no such filter) is a little beyond me, but if you do have filters nearby, just drop one in the sink, just above your drain, pour the grounds and wet, gritty coffee through it, and then pull the now ground-filled filter out of the sink, twist it shut, and set it aside for later use. Check out this gallery at Imgur to see what we mean.

If you’re looking for a reusable (and perhaps better) approach to saving the ground coffee from your coffee plunger, you might consider picking up a Coffee Catcher, a gadget we’ve mentioned before. (It’s no longer available at its original source, but you can still pick them up here.)

Whatever you do though, don’t let those grounds go down the sink like some of the Reddit users at the link below suggest — they absorb oil and moisture very easily and clog your drains. Once or twice won’t be a problem, but I specifically had a plumber scold me while snaking my kitchen drain last summer for pouring coffee grounds down the sink. If you’re just going to dispose of them, shake them into the trash. Otherwise, your plants will thank you for giving the grounds to them instead.

We’re willing to bet you have some more ingenious ideas for catching the grounds from your coffee plunger in a simple and painless way. Let’s hear them in the comments below.

How to Clean Up After a French Press [Reddit]