Zero Waste Ideas: Reducing Waste in the Kitchen With Reusable Coffee Filters

Continuing my series about reducing kitchen waste, I would like to address the concept of single use items. That is items that are only intended to be used once and thrown away. I will be talking about a lot of these things we use every day without giving it a thought. Replacing single use items with reusable ones greatly reduces the amount of garbage we create. 

So today let’s talk about coffee filters. If you are using paper ones that are intended for single use, we can reduce waste by purchasing a washable, reusable one. Even if you are composting your used filters, they still come in a box usually with a plastic window that has to be ripped off and put into the trash in order to recycle that box. Basically a reusable coffee filter eliminates the need to continually buy disposable ones, thus saving money. 

You can obviously still compost the grounds. I like to dump the grounds directly in my house plant pots as it feeds nutrients to the soil. I also occasionally put them down my garbage disposal with some lemon wedges to give them a good clean.

Here’s the one I am using with my Mr. Coffee and the link to Amazon.