People Say Coffee Grounds Can Melt Ice — But Does This Winter Hack Really Work?

If you are one of those people who prefer making your own coffee as opposed to waiting in line at the drive-through, you're likely going to have amassed a lot of used grounds. While you could just throw them away, we'd actually recommend saving them because they can be utilized for a slew of different beneficial purposes. And when winter rears its icy head, you might hear people say that you can use those leftover coffee grounds to melt ice. The question is: Are they right?

Unfortunately, coffee grounds will not work as a homemade ice melt. One of the cases made for coffee grounds is that anything that dissolves in water can be used to melt ice. Seeing as coffee grounds don't dissolve in water unless they've been ground down to a powdery consistency, they will not be nearly as efficient as other types of ice melts will be.

Now, if it is sunny out and you have coffee grounds on your walkway, their dark color will absorb more heat and potentially melt a little bit more of the ice underneath. However, that is the coffee grounds working in conjunction with heat as opposed to their natural properties melting ice singlehandedly. Still, even though they aren't especially efficient at melting ice, there are still ways your coffee grounds can help make your winters a little easier.

While coffee grounds aren't that great at melting ice, they aren't totally useless. As a matter of fact, they can come in handy when you are trying to keep your walkway from getting slippery. Because coffee grounds are coarse, they act as a means of gritty traction on the otherwise smooth, slippery surface of the ice. They work much the same way as sand in this regard.

Now, we'd like to bring your attention back to the very beginning of this piece, where we talked about how quickly coffee grounds can amass after a week's worth of brewing. One serving of coffee grounds is not going to get you very far in terms of use as a means of traction. However, if you steadily keep collecting your coffee grounds after you're done making your coffee, you might just find that you have enough to spread on your slippery steps and walkway.

Another upside to this is that coffee is all natural and safe for pets and kids to walk on. Heck, some plants even love coffee grounds spread over their soil beds. Plus, you're essentially getting two tools for the price of one. You get to make the coffee you love, and then use those grounds to make sure you don't slip and spill that cup you were looking forward to sipping on your way to work.