For those who don't need as many grounds

 

WALLINGFORD, CT — A Wallingford coffee shop is brewing up a new eco-friendly initiative to help celebrate Earth Day.

Green Kettle Coffee, located at 208 Center St. in Wallingford, will be saving its used coffee grounds for customers to take for their gardens or compost, according to owner Kristen Gilbride.

“As a coffee shop, we waste so many coffee grounds, we'd love for those grounds to be put to good use,” Gilbride said.

The new initiative starts April 1, and the used coffee grounds will be available for customers to take for free, according to Gilbride.

“We know how valuable coffee grounds can be for a garden or house plants, and we'd love to see our customers’ plants thrive,” Gilbride said. “We have so many used grounds that go straight into the trash, so we're excited to put them to good use. We'll be putting the used grounds in our wholesale coffee bags for customers who need a lot of grounds. For those who don't need as many grounds, we encourage them to BYOB, Bring Your Own Bag.

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“We wanted to start this initiative in April for two reasons. One, Earth Day is in April and we wouldn't have coffee if we didn't have a healthy planet. As a business, we hope that we can help the community feed their gardens and nourish their soil. Second, a lot of people start planting their gardens in April, and we want them to know they can turn to us for used coffee grounds.”

Gilbride said they go through around 30 pounds of coffee grounds a week.

“So, it really adds up when you consider how much we go through monthly,” she said.

Cam Darling, one of the baristas at Green Kettle Coffee who is also an artist, painted an Earth Day-inspired bin to keep the grounds in, according to Gilbride. The bin will be placed near the entrance of the shop.

Green Kettle Coffee opened in December, and Gilbride said that from the beginning, they’ve wanted to “weave sustainable aspects” into the coffee shop.

“Sustainability is tricky because it's hard to make every aspect of the business sustainable especially with the budget of a new business,” she said. “One sustainability practice we're passionate about is keeping everything as local as possible. As we continue to form strong relationships with local vendors, we're excited to bring a little bit of sustainability to our customers.”