I finally asked someone at my workplace cafeteria for coffee grounds. Of course, it took a couple of days when they kept forgetting, but after I walked through the process with them (Okay, so they're too hot to put in a bag immediately, so you have a bucket, then you'll put them in a bag at the end of the day...) I'm on my third day of collections. So far, my wife hasn't really noticed the smell, but when it heats up I'll have to find somewhere further away or bury them. I've been adding them to the lawn, a little bit at a time. As a result, I ask for it without the filters, they'd just blow away on my lawn! But assuming that they are paper filters, they should be just fine for a compost pile, similar to other paper waste. I thought I read that UCG is a slug deterrent somewhere? Anyone know if there's any truth to that?

EXCELLENT. I too bring them home from work - on a regular basis. if there was a starbucks nearby i would do that one too. Course, i am not too worried about the grass - more time for flowers - grass is dead anyway from the drought.

I'm starting to use them on my compost bin. I'd ask for them at work but their coffee maker is the most wonderfully wastefull thing i've ever seen in my life...

All that non-recyclable plastic/foil/paper crap you'd find in a juicebox in a single serving coffee packet. <sigh>

That being said, I do need to find some kind of source of free-nitrogen for the compost bin because I have way++ more brown than green right now.

Roseyp mentioned this already, but I get my grounds from Starbucks. I went in a few weeks ago around 3 in the afternoon on a weekend and they gave me two huge bags full. I had so much, in fact, that I gave one bag to a friend. All you have to do is walk in and ask. It's their corporate policy.

I wish the Starbucks near me did that, but they are in a Target and I am not going to drive 30min. to the only other one around to get coffee grounds. That would just be a huge waste. But next time I am near one I will.

I tested this out last night. I had to stop and get gas and I noticed there was a Starbucks in the same shopping center so i walked in, asked and was handed a small bag of grounds.

When one of the clerks saw that that the bag was so small, he asked me if I wanted more, to which I of course replied, "sure" and he walked me out to his car and took out a HUGE 10-15lbs bag out of his trunk and handed it to me.

Said he could get another bag of the same tomorrow and he had no plans on using it tonight so I was more than welcome to it.

THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR THE TIP!!!!

arjo, you can use other people's grass clippings:
cruise through the neighborhood the night before trash day & pick up free bagged nitrogen.

You'll want to mix it into the pile pretty quickly, as grass clippings break down fast & smell like ammonia.

I pick up used teabags at a nearby restaurant that sells iced tea by the gallon.

I get at least a gallon bucket daily.

I do have to stop by every day;
tea leaves smell "fermented" if left overnight, & the restaurant has to get rid of them.

no need to tear them up, the bag composts just fine.

& you can almost always find somebody who has a never-ending supply of stale beer & wine (a neighbor who entertains a lot-or who works for a beer company!), moldy fruit & juices, shriveled vegetables (yogurt shop/health food store/fruit stand/farmer's market), barnyard manure (any place where you see a horse!)...

I have several people who will give me a never ending pile of horse manure once I'm ready for it but right now I've just been starting out by composting all the weeds and leaves that were left behind in a huge pile by the previous owners of my house.

I was very happily surprised this afternoon - i race home for lunches - to find that when it came time to water the pile again today after flipping it for the first time last saturday, it's size has been reduced almost in half. It's definately working although the whole "free composting' pile is less than ideal.

I hope to snag me between 7-10 pallets sometime in the near future to make a 2-3 bin system out of it, but this starter pile has been a real boost to the morale in terms of motivation.

Any tips for composting branches? I have plenty, lol...

Branches are like everything else:
the more surface area there is, the faster they decompose.

Chip or shred them if possible, or break them into pieces as small as you can (breaking works better than cutting because it exposes more surface), stick them inside the pile, & surround & top them with plenty of nitrogen.

We are so in sync in this forum! I always bring back fruit peels from my lunch, but it also occured to me about a month ago to start collecting the coffee grounds of the office where I work, so I talked to a couple people and they were very welcoming of the idea. I thought I would bring a container for collecting the grounds every other day or so, but then I realized that I could just grab the used grounds, filter and all, and place them in the empty lunch container I was bringing back anyways. A compost doggy bag.