Cheer up, bencjedi. Actually, Starbucks is doing a good deed. Let them fill up their plastic garbage bags to their heart's content and you will sometimes be rewarded with 20-40 lbs of grounds. I hit about 4 SB locations last year on a regular route and it was a bonanza. I mixed the grounds in with dry leaves, yard waste, green food scraps, some other good stuff, and the mature compost was really rich! The moisture in a large quantity of grounds are a bonus.

It's Starbucks' corporate policy to give the grounds, but that only holds true for the full Starbucks, not the ones that are inside grocery stores, bookstores, airports, etc. Even in the full Starbucks locations, they won't necessarily use your buckets. One that I used to visit had to stop because the local health department considered the grounds to be garbage and wouldn't allow it in the customer area.

I pick up the grounds at a Starbucks in a grocery store (at a Safeway in California). They always put it in their own plastic bags, so maybe your bucket (though more environmentally friendly) was the problem. Other customers also stop by for the grounds, so maybe they didn't want to give you "exclusive" rights. I wouldn't worry about it too much--do it their way (but still get the grounds!).

That problem is Kroger related, not Starbucks related. The founder of Starbucks has been brought back by the board to get Starbucks back to its roots from which past management allowed the company to drift.

There are no SB close to where I live but there are many in the city. I think at one time or another I have stopped into most of them to ask for grounds and been refused. "We don't do that here". Only twice was I able to get grounds, one of their silver bags each time. They say they don't save them because nobody ever asks for them.

My area is just not very "green". I know only one other person in the city who composts, so I don't doubt the truth of what the SB employee told me.

Karen

Some of the Starbucks here stop saving the grounds during winter due to reduced requests from casual gardeners. I pop in as often as I can just to keep them in the habit . . . .when more people ask for them, they're more likely to bag them. In winter I get more bigger bags.

There are (At least.) two different sort sorts of Starbucks. I walk to a local casino each morning for my Starbucks. It is owned and operated by the casino and does not save or give away grounds. Across the street, 65 feet away is a stand alone Starbucks. It does save and give away grounds.

I went back to the store today and asked the different employees what they knew and they told me it is fine to bring the bucket. Their boss is actually cool with it. Turns out the lady that told me I couldn't do the buckets anymore PERSONALLY doesn't like to do it. I am told she is a 'neat freak' and doesn't like to fill it. Sooo they told me to bring the bucket on their shifts and they would be happy to fill it. I don't want to make waves and am happy to take any UCGs they offer, so I can work around this. I did a lot of yard work today (in the obscenely warm weather for January) and feel pretty good now. :)

That sucks, but I'd still go in and get the bags if I were you. You'll still probably get a pretty good haul of grounds.

I also agree with previous posters that it is probably the Kroger's management putting the kibosh on your set-up, not Starbucks. I've had the same problem with the local Barnes and Noble bookstore, even though their coffee shop is a Starbucks: no coffee grounds from them. The stand-alone Starbucks a mile down the road will save bags of grounds for me, even in winter (I'm actually gonna pick some up today).

I have tried to get grounds at the Starbucks in my local Kroger store in Marion IL. The employees hoard it for themselves, storing it in a closet. I have seen them carrying out boxes and boxes of bagged UCG's to their cars minutes after they have told me they had no grounds.

I guess it's a good sign that the demand for grounds exceeds the supply in Southern Illinois. I'm glad someone is putting the UCG's to good use.

Well Kroger called me this morning and told me Starbucks can no longer give me any coffee grounds because Kroger owns this Starbucks as a franchise an they said the store policy prevails.. which is "we do not give out any trash or leftovers from ANY department". They said if they allowed the Starbucks to give out the UCGs, they would have to allow the bakery, produce section, etc to do the same; no matter the intended use. I understand it is a Kroger policy, but it isn't very green and is wasteful. She called Starbucks corporate and they told her her franchise store was not bound to the policy stated on the last paragraph

She pointed out an incident that happened recently where my bucket was accidentally spilled and made a mess causing extra work for the employee that knocked it over. In my opinion that could have happened to their regular trash can. I think that employee had a vendetta on me because she is tight up the you-know-where. Looks like she won since she got the parent store involved. I'll have to look into a corporate-owned Starbucks for UCGs.

Starbucks policy is here

Right here

I just picked up a huge clear bag of UCG's from Starbucks just now. I called them at 9 this morning to save for me and they were happy to oblidge. I guess it depends who you talk to. I hope I can call them a few times a week to do what they did for me today. I hope they don't get sick of dealing with me lol.

Don't give up on finding a grounds source. Convenience stores, gas stations, restaurants, locally owned coffee shops all generate a steady supply of grounds. You would only need to get over any embarassment in asking.

I'm very disappointed in Kroger. The little things we do add up to being more "green" too. I don't know why this is such a difficult concept to comprehend...oh yeah, probably something to do with lawsuits. Well that excuse is getting rather old too!

Good luck.

In my opinion, you will get MORE grounds.My hubby picked me up a garbage bag full last night when he went to coffee and I just went a miles out of town and stopped at 3 Starbucks and collected a whole trunkful of grounds! One had them bagged up by recycling the actual coffee bags and the others just gave me their trash bags full of cofee. There are others that had come in before me, but they still had a bag full for me. I went in the afternoon. They say after 11am is good and of course it's first come first serve which is fair. And winter is the best time to pick it up I am told. So beat the pack this winter and I bet you will be happy with your stash.

Corporations, health dept, have funny rules, health and safety standards, and standards on how the kitchen area should look(a picture or diagram). If a regional manager came by, they probably had a fit when they saw your bucket, or maybe someone tripped over it.

No worries, you will figure a way to recycle the bags in the garden you can cover your plants in the winter, leaf bags etc. Or maybe bring in a slightly larger bucket then their trash to collect it in, but you will have to collect there without leaving it there. You will probably get more without the bucket though. Just policy, so don't be bummed or embarrased at all!

I had been going to my local starbucks for a while picking up 0-2 bags a trip, a good amount, but for me to make a special trip it wasn't quite enough.

I talked to the manager and she agreed that if I brought my own 32gal trash bin and put it outside in the dumpster area, they would put the bags of coffee grounds in that instead of just putting them in the dumpster.

Now when I go I can get from 0-8 bags of grounds, (the zero is because some of the workers ended up telling everyone that came to go to my bucket, I was hoping for exclusive use).

I still get a chance for much more grounds than I did before, and this way I figure I'm helping save even more grounds than I can use from the landfill when others can get up to eight bags of grounds at a time.

Cheers,
Kyle

The Starbucks here in Somerset, KY actually put them in bags for you and leaves them near their door for you

Is your Somerset Starbucks inside a Kroger store? It's really a shame the Winchester one here said no more grounds in winter and fall, but they may consider giving them away (no buckets) in spring/summer. Hopefully they will do that much. Just a shame they decided to be wasteful for the months I could be decomposing the stuff to use in the summer. We had a good thing going. I already miss it.

I just asked our local free-standing Starbucks coffee house if they would put the extra grounds they normally throw out in a receptacle I could provide them that could be kept outside the back door but I got the typical "against health code regs" answer. They did say if I wanted to call ahead the morning I know I'm coming they will put their excess aside for me as long as they know I'm coming to get it that day. That's something I guess.

Danielle

It helps to cultivate the employees. I've gathered large bags from 2 nearby stores for over two years.
I try to go every day at about the same time (4 p.m.) so that the employees expect me and save the grounds for me instead of throwing them in the dumpster. When a new hire tosses the grounds, the older hands apologize and remind the newbie. In the summer I bring in a box or two of cherry tomatoes or figs as finger food for the workers. In the winter I bring in cookies or brownies around Thanksgiving and Christmas. We know each other's first names.
I recognize that some stores have odd policies and sometimes there are personality conflicts. But if you can find a good place, keep everyone happy.

great post, tomatobob! A little goodwill goes a long way sometimes. I'm near a good-sized city, and go into town a couple of days a week. There are three or four starbucks along the way, along with my favorite coffee shop. The starbucks employees always greet me with a smile and thank me for hauling off their grounds, even though I rarely buy a coffee there. They call me the "coffee grounds guy," except in the summertime when I'm the "tomato guy." I think treats from the garden help them realize why saving grounds for all us crazy composters is better than using the dumpster....

Our Starbucks is near a Lowes here. At my work I setup a trashcan for our coffee grounds. Since work has free coffee here. You would be amazed on how much coffee 10 people drink in a week!

Update,

I went this weekend and checked on my 32gal trash bin outside the local starbucks and found 10 bags of grounds!!! Quite the haul.

Keep at it Danielle, if the bags of grounds they give out are in a trash can it should be equivalent to a dumpster, health-code wise. My bin is actually in a closed area with the regular dumpsters.

Cheers,
Kyle

I was wondering, "If this is a store policy, could one notify the starbucks website and ask them why one of their stores isn't following their policy of recycling and saving the landfills"? I don't know if that tactic would work or not. Just a thought.

I don't suppose it would hurt to contact the website folks and ask that question, though the barista that complained did tell me the store was considering only giving them out in spring/summer. That's contradictory to me. What's the difference about giving them away in the dead of winter than in spring/summer? I actually think that winter time is a great time to collect them because the demand is low, so by the summer the non-hardcore gardeners can have a crack at taking the grounds and the 'compost nuts' like myself collected a nice stockpile over winter, so we aren't impacting the summer gardener with UCG deprivation.

Here's what the Starbucks website says:
"Grounds for Your Garden Coffee grounds make up the heaviest portion of the waste stream in Starbucks stores. Through the Grounds for Your Garden program, Starbucks encourages reuse of spent coffee grounds by giving them to customers and parks as nitrogen-rich soil amendment."

I think I will see if I can collect some grounds at work by adding a bucket by the coffee maker.

Here is a link that might be useful: Starbucks Waste Reduction And Reuse

A year or two ago, I tried contacting corporate through the website & all I got back was a standard letter that didn't answer my question. Good luck!

Something else you could do is put their regular mailing address on here and ask that everyone who reads it flood their mail box with letters to continue the collection of coffee grounds. Wouldn't you love to see their face? LOL

A year or so ago I stopped at a Starbucks outside my 'regular' area & was told something that I know was a lie (& I could tell by the wide-eyed, unblinking look the guy gave me while reciting this that he knew it to be a lie, too):

"We don't save grounds here.
You can go to the Starbucks down the street, they'll have them.
We can't keep them here because we're such a high-volume store that the grounds attract fruit flies.
The health department won't let us keep the grounds."

1. If coffee grounds are a health hazard, they're a health hazard in every coffee shop, & the health department wouldn't let the store down the street, or *any* Starbucks or other coffee shop, give away their grounds.

2. If you're a high-volume store, you wouldn't let grounds or any other discards pile up:
you'd just empty your containers more often.
(There used to be a Starbucks near Town East Mall in Mesquite that always put their grounds in a designated trash can just outside their door.
Everybody knew that's what that can was for, & they put their trash in the other can.)

3. There's no health/environmental difference between discarding "unclaimed" grounds every night & discarding *all* the grounds every night.
The only difference is whether the grounds go into a garden or into the landfill.

The manager of that store undoubtedly just didn't want to set the grounds aside.

so I emailed Starbucks & received the non-commital "sorry your visit was less than perfect.
Please give us a try again, we're sending you a coupon."

Wow! I must be lucky. I stop at the same store everyday, 7 days a week. Mon - Fri after i get off of work right around 2pm on my way home. Sat- Sun around 5pm. I know everyone in the store and the manager too. They keep the used grounds in there small desk size gargabe can in the conner. Somedays when there slow, the manager will even bring them out to me at the main door. Maybe once a month or so, someone beats me to the grounds, oh well. When I do go into the store, they feel bad that they had to give them to some on else. If I know I wont be in the next day or when I go away I always tell them. They will save up to 3 days of grounds for me. What a great bunch of people that work there. Once in a while I will buy a box of candy for all the work they do for me. :)

I walk into Starbucks and ask them if I may relieve them of their trash. Usually, I score a large white, double-bagged plastic trash liner filled with grounds. (Side benefit---I no longer buy 30 gallon trash bags.) I always decline help carrying it out to my car. I find the employees are happy to be deprived of their trip to the outdoor trash bin. If a store gave me a hard time, I would nicely inform them that being green, making a gesture to the communities who absorb their trash, and offering coffeegrounds for gardening is corporate policy, and that they could look it up on Starbucks web site, or I can print it out and bring it in for them to read if they'd like. I would point out that Starbucks gets good press out of the policy and it would be awful if they were getting it without earning it.

On the other hand, asking Starbucks to go above and beyond their agreement, by allowing indoor collection buckets, is bound to annoy the very first employee who bumps their shin on it.

Annpat, I specifically asked my store if I could provide a bucket prior to me even collecting and they said that would be fine. It wasn't until 2 months later (after I had been collecting daily) that some employees bumped it and made a mess and the morning employee had to clean it up and then decided to make it a Kroger store issue. I don't know if I believe that the store has to follow Kroger policy on "no, giveaways", but it seems awfully convenient for that one employee who had to clean up the bucket mess to use that as a scapegoat. I am disappointed at this Starbucks deciding to go against what is printed on the Starbucks website. I amassed a nice quantity for all the buckets I collected and was at a good point to stop (for awhile) anyhow. I actually talked to the employee that made the bucket spill a Kroger issue and she said she was sorry, however she wasn't going to stand for her colleagues lack of tidiness and eliminating the bucket by going through Kroger was the only way she could fix that problem once and for all. I think her move was selfish, but understandable. The Starbucks manager was on my side, but Kroger has him tied down to their policy, so there's nothing he can do. They said Kroger won't allow any grounds to go out the door, just as they don't let expired bakery items or produce scraps go out either. Stupid non-green policies!

Yes. I had a nice bucket system going on myself once, not in Starbucks, but a local restaurant. One non-green apple spoils the whole bunch.

It sounds like Starbucks puts ONLY coffee grounds (and filters, I s'pose) in one trash container, and all the other refuse in another bag?

Seems to me, if I walk up to Stevie Starbucks and ask him for his trash, I'll get a big bag full of coffee grounds, plastic forks, cups, lids, paper towels, empty Windex bottles, et al.

Does Starbucks as a rule separate the grounds from the 'regular' trash and use different containers?

J

"Does Starbucks as a rule separate the grounds from the 'regular' trash and use different containers?"

Most of them do as a matter of corporate policy. As others have noted earlier in this thread, that doesn't apply to the ones in grocery stores, airports, etc.

Also, even some full Starbucks don't do it if the grounds pile up and nobody takes them (I've seen this at quite a few that are in downtown areas). Also, some cities will tell them they can't bag the grounds and put them in the bucket by the door, so if you don't see the buckt, you may need to ask.