From today, Morrisons Largs will give-away used coffee grounds from its in store café to local gardeners, to help fertilise their plants.

Largs’s gardeners can get the used coffee grounds by visiting the Morrisons store on Irvine Road, and picking up a bag located on a dedicated stand within its café. There will be no limit to the number of bags available to each gardener to take away.

Used coffee grounds are a source of nitrogen which is needed by plants in order to grow. They also encourage the growth of micro-organisms and are thought to attract earth worms.

Gardeners can either compost their used coffee grounds or put them directly into the soil around their plants. Putting it directly into the soil also adds organic matter which improves soil’s water retention, drainage and structure.

Mitchell Shields, Store Manager at Morrisons Largs said: "Used coffee grounds are a great organic resource which gardeners can use in their composter or soil. We sell a lot of cups of coffee in our stores and don’t like to see anything going to waste - so it’s great to see this natural fertiliser going to a good home. We hope that when spring comes Largs’s plants will be in full bloom as a result!"

Dr David Moon, Head of Sustainable Food WRAP said “It’s great to see a ‘waste material’ being used in a beneficial way like this and we welcome Morrison’s decision. This highlights one aspect of our voluntary agreement to make food and drink more efficiently - Courtauld Commitment 2025, that often ‘waste’ which cannot be avoided, can still have unexpected secondary benefits. Even something as seemingly worthless as spent coffee still has environmental and economic benefits, which in this case are being shared with Morrison’s shoppers.”

Nationwide, Morrisons serves over 18 million cups of coffee grinds nearly 316 tonnes of coffee beans in a year. The coffee recycling scheme will be available in all 390 Morrisons cafés across England, Scotland and Wales from 26thApril.