Starbucks for Coffee Grounds in SF Bay Area

I used Starbucks in the past for coffee grounds, until the Starbucks in Westlake became very unfriendly and in fact hostile to me. I found Tully's on Sloat has a good attitude. The Starbucks in Colma is ok, but I get tired of explaining to counter people who have never heard of coffee grounds in compost.

I wish I could just pay for the grounds instead of asking and getting rude treatment. Starbucks has a "coffee college" but they don't teach them about people asking for coffee grounds. I even filled out a complaint card, and never heard back from Starbucks. When I was using coffee grounds my compost was richer, and since I got discouraged and stopped asking my compost is drier and thinner. Things take much longer to break down and I don't get as much heat.

Starbucks lost my business, since I try to avoid them now when ever I can and instead go to Tully's or Pete's. They try harder to be nice, because they are not number 1.
Bug Girl

Bug Girl,
I always use coffee grounds and tea bags in my compost. There is a wonderful little coffee and bagel shop around the corner from me. They even keep their coffee grounds in a separate container where they make up the coffee. I get mine from there now as I stopped making coffee at home and only drink decaf once in awhile. I swear by the coffee grounds as they really do make a difference.

Right now, I am on a diet so I am not drinking the sweet coffee drinks I used to get there. So when I walk in without buying any thing I feel like I should buy something. The problem is nothing is good for a diet at these places. I asked about the calories of the low fat scones at Pete's and it was like 600 calories each. I almost dropped dead. I really wish I could just pay them like a dollar for the grounds and then be treated like a human and not some pest.

Public companies (stock trading ones), such as Starbucks, are always looking for good public relations. Lord knows these days with share prices depressed after the dot bomb and loss of investor confidence they need it. Wouldn't it be marvelous for Starbucks and all the other retailers of pricey flavoured water to donate / recycle their "waste product" to local community or other gardeners? This would create community awareness of their product, reduce the volume and cost of waste handling, etc. The good will generated by this would be very welcome to these businesses. Perhaps as a GROUP, the members of this site could contact the investor relations and public affairs officers at the coffee companies and see if they have an interest in this?

Adam.

Yes, that is already in place as a policy, go to the green page of the Starbucks website to find details. The problem is the individual stores do not care to comply. H

I have found one which is giving me grounds at this point. However, the notice does say this is a limited time offer, so maybe the program is just a trail?

Here's my question..., given the seven minutes total elapsed time between my post and yours..., were you sitting there waiting for me to finish editing before you started writing ;~) ? The next time I grace Starbucks with a five dollar bill, I'll go in with a plastic sack and see if I can walk out with more than just a caffiene buzz.

Adam.

You could go to the starbucks website and print out the green page and show it to them, I never did this, but it was suggested to me.

I've had a similar experience at K-Mart. My friend and I were shopping there this summer and they had a huge cart full of dead plants, I asked them if I could have them for my compost and they said they weren't allowed to give them to anyone.Instead they go to the dumps where they contribute to the land fill.I can't believe that companies are so ignorant about the land fill problem in this country.It's the same at other stores as well.

Gorcery stores throw away a ton of fruits and vegtables and won't give them up. I go to produce markets and look for a discard bin. Home Depot would not give me or sell me a cactus that someone took a ball point pen to. Some hard core compost people look in dumpsters. The dumpster behind any Starbucks will contain all the coffee ground you could even need. But, don't get caught.

There's a lot of smaller coffee shops and restaurants that might be more amenable to letting you have their coffee grounds. I remember when I worked in a hotel restaurant, boy, they made coffee by the 5-gallon size at least once an hour! Any good restaurant would probably be able to give you enough coffee grounds in a single day that would heat up your compost for a month. Worth a try, anyway.

Before dumping (sorry about that) on the local stores, keep one thing in mind. Very often they don't make the rules.

The supermarkets in my town, for instance, are not allowed to stockpile produce scraps. By law they have to go in the dumpsters.

So, if I happen to be there while they're trimming veggies, the produce people will give me all that I want. Otherwise, the waste gets wasted.

I've heard of a supermarket chain in California that goes the opposit route. They collect all the produce waste from their stores and cart it to a composting facility. The compost is then bagged and sold to gardeners.

To me that's one of the smartest moves a chain can make. Instead of paying to have it hauled off, they are making money out of their garbage.

Wonder why others haven't picked up on this idea.

When I first started getting grounds from Starbucks they gave them to me in doubled garbage bags. The last time I went in and asked (last week) they had the gounds in nice bags prepacked and out where you can walk in a take them without asking. Of course I had to ask for the ones in the garbage also, but they were very nice and gave me a huge amount. The prepacked bags even tell you have much to put on your gardens. They staff at this Starbucks has always been very friendly and made me feel comforable. South Orange Ave in Orlando Florida. There is also one north of this one downtown on the same road that is hard to get parking and a long walk with the heavy grounds.

Delisa

Before a small indivually owed and operated coffee shop closed down, the woman used to save her grinds for me. I brought in a pail and cover and lined it with garbage size bags. I would pick up the pail at least once a week. I really liked having them to add to my compost. It made the compost nice and rich....the worms liked it too.
Margie in SJ

I recently found out about this program, but the local Starbucks' manager had never heard of it. After weeks of talking to the corporate headquarters for so. CA and going through various manager's sick leaves, vacations, etc, finally, success! Now a number of us are collecting the grounds. I show up with a small cart I use to take supplies in to work, and a sturdy canvas tote bag to put the plastic bag with the grounds in. So far I've used 2 bags and it's already made a difference. So if you meet with resistance try customer relations at corporate headquarters.

I have never had any problem walking out of a Starbucks with all the grounds I could carry. Didn't matter if I had purchased anything or not.
If I had a full size pickup truck I could go from Starbucks to Starbucks and have it full in a hour or two. Of course I live in Seattle so it isn't unusal to have 2 Starbucks on the same block.
Did you ever try another store? Sounds to me like an employee problem. Can't handle their caffine (:

In most CA counties, separating 'greens' trash to be composted is mandatory. One can't assume that retailers are wasting their greens by not giving them to individual gardeners. In SF County, for instance, residents have 5 separate trash bins for their waste products. The compost made by our local recycling center is pretty high quality stuff, my plants love it!

My city gives us a green waste bin for branches and leaves (not food waste). They haul that off for free and compost it and sell the compost. They also give us a $40 rebate on home composting equipment, which I'm going to take them up on. I could be composting a lot instead of sending it into green waste, and I'd like to compost veggie scraps and tea bags and things too.

Our local Starbucks has a special little area for free coffee grounds - they put them in fairly large bags and have a sign that says "for the garden".

I finally called my local starbucks, they couldnt understand why I wanted them, I said I want to put them in my compost not reuse them, blech, so they said welp since you want to pick them up in the am we will have a big bag for you. All righ!! Well I went in about 10 that morning so I wouldnt catch them in a rush hour, asked for my grounds, the kid had no idea what I was talking about, I waited and waited, then saw a small bag sitting there. Come to find out the night crew DID have a big bag full of grounds for me but the morning crew didnt know what they were for and threw them out. The bag was under a bunch of other trash, they apologized and gave me what they had at the moment and told me next time they will make sure it is saved for me. Not a bad experience, kids just knowing nothing about compost. I am kinda surprised that they arent aware that someone will come in asking because even the website mentions about giving away coffee grounds to people who ask for them.

Here in Irvine, CA, some of the 'Bucks give out large bags, some small. The small bags are specially printed with "good for your garden" instructions. All free, of course. Kudos to SBUX!

Took awhile, not being very computer literate, to find the Sbux comment place and a name. The name was Ben Packard, Manager of Environmental Projects, forgot the address.But being a small stockholder I figured it was appropriate to call the insulting conduct of one of their stores to their attention, with the suggestion they make it a policy to not only make grounds available, but do it in a courtious manner. Who knows, maybe they will even respond. In any event there is no excuse for discourteous behaviour.The Sbux site did say that there is no Company Policy re: distributing coffee grounds, it is up to the individual stores. With the Execs. pulling in over a million bucks each per year you would think a little more attention to detail would be OK.

My local Starbuck's(in SJ,CA) had a box with large size baggies....32 Gal. size....marked, "coffee grinds for your garden". The bag was too big and heavy for me to carry comfortably, so the fellow there even carried it out to my car for me. I was one happy gardener!

I get two bags a week "Grounds for the Garden"...awesome stuff. I put one bag in the compost and the other I use to spread around my hostas and other tender slug yummy plants.