11 Tons of Campus Coffee Grounds Wake Up More Than Students

If you notice a familiar whiff of “morning Joe” as you stroll to class this spring, it may not be from your cup of coffee. It might be from the flowerbeds and landscaping on the University of Cincinnati campus.

In caring for campus and encouraging sustainability, UC recycles 11 tons of used coffee grounds annually, first collecting the grounds from food sources on campus and then mixing the grounds with other materials to boost the effectiveness of compost.

Adding acid-rich coffee grounds has long been known to give flowerbeds a boost when sprinkled around the topsoil, but when added to aged compost piles,

horticulturists say the caffeine kick added into the soil can be just the pick-me-up for new seedlings and annuals planted in the spring.

So UC’s Facilities Management grounds maintenance crew are now applying this approach to its beautification efforts around main campus.

The campus composting initiative involves three piles of dead leaves and vegetation collected from the campus grounds. And of the three:

• one pile is finished workable compost from the last several years
• one pile is currently decomposing from last season
• the newer pile includes the coffee-grounds collected this year

THE CYCLE OF LIFE

Decomposing the organic material is no quick process either. According to Greg Miller, grounds maintenance supervisor in charge of collecting the grounds and maintaining the compost piles, it takes approximately a year for the substance to decay into usable compost. And those piles reside on a 7-acre site off campus behind UC’s Fishwick Boulevard facilities management building –– four miles north of campus.

Miller says he designates a half-day a week to collect the grounds at UC’s various food-source locations such as Starbucks, Kingsgate Marriot and food vendors around main campus.

The resulting mature compost is then mixed into the soil around main campus in early winter to enhance perennial re-growth, and added around new flowering annuals in the spring in locations like the front entrance gate on Clifton Avenue, around University Circle, the Recreation Center circle and MSB circle.

“By mixing coffee grounds in with our existing piles of dried leaf litter, we have created a nutrient-rich compost mixture that we can use to fertilize the landscape beds all over main campus,” says Miller. “Blending coffee grounds into the compost mixture adds more essential acidic minerals that perennial evergreens and flowering shrubs like rhododendrons and azaleas love.”

In short, this effort has a triple effect. It saves money on added fertilizer, reduces the cost of waste pickup and increases the beautification efforts on UC’s campus.

NEW NURSERY FOR FUTURE FLORA

Bob Bauer, UC director of grounds maintenance and transportation recently announced Facilities Management’s newest initiative where they now maintain a new tree nursery on the vacant land around the Fishwick Boulevard site.

“As another effort to save costs and enhance sustainability, we have an area designated where we have planted over 100 small deciduous trees of 25 different types,”

says Bauer. “These trees will be planted on main campus when they are mature, some of which include red maples, Japanese maples, oak, chestnut and flowering varieties.

In addition, Bauer says 150 more young trees are arriving this spring. These trees will help UC maintain its high standards as one of the most beautiful campuses in the country while eliminating the cost of purchasing new, mature trees when needed.

“Among our new ventures, we will also be planting a fruit-tree orchard soon at the Fishwick site to be maintained by students in biology and other departments to use for horticulture grafting research,” says Bauer. “The potential for increased sustainability at UC is endless and we plan to take advantage of every opportunity to continue the effort.”

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