Coffee Chaff Chicken Coop Litter

Reader Contribution by Staff
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My friend David Ruggiero is working on a new project called “Upcycling Northwest.”  Upcycling, of course, is the in-word for smarter/better recycling, making use of the energy in the initial production of something, rather than using more energy to break it down into raw materials-or, as David puts it, finding “the highest and best re-use for the material rather than the easiest or most obvious.”  David is sure that there is more to upcycling than making arty handbags out of gum wrappers. With Upcycling Northwest, he’s trying to hook folks up with useful industrial castoffs.  And in Seattle, what better place to start than with the coffee industry?

A few weeks ago, David sent an email around to his many intrepid gardener friends, inviting us to try out coffee bean chaff-the light, airy husks blown off the beans during roasting-as mulch and compost.  I said “sure,” and it wasn’t long before David darkened my doorstep with a big bag of the fluffy stuff.

I admit I wasn’t feeling super-hopeful about the mulch idea-the chaff is so soft and light, and the winter garden is so wet and mucky-I thought I might wait until spring.  But David mentioned he’d been using it in place of wood chips in the chicken coop, and that captured my imagination.  Next time I cleaned out the coop, I replaced the white wood shavings with a few inches of coffee chaff.

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