Compost Your Tea Leaves and Coffee Grounds

After my last blog about iced tea, several readers emailed me to ask about composting their used tea bags or loose-leaf tea. This is a great idea!
 
Composting tea is an easy way to make your diet and your garden a little more sustainable. You will add less waste to landfills; it might seem like a trivial amount but imagine if everyone did it every week. You will also be providing organic matter to your garden, meaning better moisture control and oxygen, reducing the need for chemicals. Best of all, they attract earthworms.
 
If you use loose-leaf tea, just add the leaves to your compost bin after brewing. If you use tea bags, check to see if they are biodegradable; that is, make sure they are compostable. If they contain polypropylene, they will not compost. You can still add them to your compost bin and take out the bags later if you’d like, or you can streamline the process by opening the little bag and taking out the tea leaves to compost.
 
It is also fine to add the tea leaves directly to your soil. This is what I do. Just loosen the soil around your plants and dig in the tea leaves, turning over the soil gently. If there is caffeine present, it will not hurt the plants.
 
Need tips for composting? Read more here. 

Want to compost coffee grounds? That’s great, too. Read more here.

Just One Thing to do:  Save your used tea leaves and coffee grounds, then add them to your compost bin or soil.

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