Keurig Challenge

He To Whom I Am Married was doing one of his stints for the U.S. Navy when he got to try out a Keurig coffee machine. He fell in love. He campaigned. He decided we needed one. So we got one.

And I was seduced. I couldn't help it.

First off, it's a damned good cup of coffee. Secondly, it is just a cup of coffee, not a carafe of which I have to throw out half. Thirdly, the clean-up is absolutely nothing--stick in a K-cup, pull out the K-cup, done.

So, yeah, while we're having our torrid, caffinated threesome, it does occur to me that while clean up is relatively easy, there is some waste with the K-cups. It seems that the K-cups are not recyclable at this time. While I'm not a rabid recycler, I do like to at least try to reuse if I can. It's not a political or environmental thing so much as I just think it's a shame to throw something out that can be useful if I just think about it in a different way.

Some ideas that I have run across/come up with include:

Pulling the cups apart, composting the grounds, and using the cups to start seedlings. Of course, this is provided that I get over my decidedly black thumb. (I may have a breakthrough in this area, but I'm afraid to say anything lest I jinx it.)

Handmade tealights

Related: Molds for mini-soaps

Coffee jelly (although this doesn't really take care of the cups)

Mini skein holders for intarsia--feeding the yarn through the hole in the bottom should work, although it would have to be fingering weight or less.

As with other projects, I'm not going to be a hoarder about it. If I can't use them, I'll toss them. I will, however, pull them apart, compost the grounds, and stack the cups to hopefully shrink the waste footprint.

Still, I'm open to any ideas. Let me ponder and search a little more.