I do the same. K-cups are only a small part of our waste problem.

What a smart idea, Rita!

Great ideas, Shami!

What a creative idea!

I used K-cups to make chairs for my Granddaughter’s LOl dolls. I covered the cup with printed duck tape and added a bead and a washer to make the base. Perfect size.

Brilliant idea!

I have used them many times in preschool Sunday School class to put snacks for the kids, Gold Fish, M7M’s etc. The kids loved having their own cup of goodies!

I love this idea!!! Thanks Stacey!

The filter comes right out. Just tap the upside-down cup to remove as much of the grounds as possible, then grab the filter and pull. It peels right off the inside edge of the cup.

Those sound cute!

Very clever! Would not have thought of this!

You are a sad person willi

That’s so smart, Susan!

I love ferns, but my house is dry as a bone in Winter. I put my latest fern, in it’s plastic greenhouse pot, on top of a bunch of upside-down K-cups in a bigger china pot. Excess water drains into the china pot and my fern, sitting on top of the K-cups gets the benefit of the extra humidity without the roots rotting.

Was there a need for a negative reply !!!
Just don’t reply !

Do you really NEED a microwave. You suggesting we throw in the garbage everything we don’t need. Gosh people get a grip!

So is toilet tissue but I’m not going to stop using it. Silly comments on here. There is tons of waste it’s just a matter of how much. I only drink one cup of coffee a day and using a regular pot is a waste. This is my one luxury and one I don’t intent to give up.

Not wasteful for me. I wasted too much coffee using a regular pot for ONLY one cup of coffee. Also one could say a microwav, etc could be a waste. Silly

Great ideas for a kids’Sunday school class, or activities even at a Senior Center. Using the cups in a constructive way is far better than tossing them in the trash.

Great idea, Georgia! I love fresh herbs too. I’m going to try my hand at growing them indoors this winter.

Glad you liked these ideas, Dan!

I think it’s a freshness thing… These individual cups are popped open nice and fresh each day for the best cup of coffee. If you fill the cups with coffee, then you are missing the freshness point!!

I have a stash of used K cups that i use for seed starters every year. I just keep reusing the same ones. I have reusable cups now that I use for my Keurig, but someone is always giving me K cups. In the summer when I’m done starting seeds, they get dried out and stored in a box for next year..

Great ideas! There is a craft on pintrest using kcups and the top of a can (after opening of course) paint both black, run a thin cord, looped, throught the hole with the knot inside the cup. Invert and glue the kcup on the lid . Glue a ribbon band around the cup and decorate with mini artificial Christmas greens .

I have to agree with Willie o’Dell that these kind of are lame. I mean seriously, using kcups to store small craft items? You’d need tons of kcups to hold paper clips, beads, or buttons. Who has ONLY the amount of paper clips that can fit in a kcup anyway? Having kcups filled with these things is only creating clutter. A container, or ziploc bag would do the trick better than kcups. And you don’t have to worry about spillage if the container or bag gets knocked around.

Card holder? Use a clothes pin, or one of those paper clips.

Very true. This post certainly wasn’t written with the intent to encourage someone to go out and buy a Keurig. It was simply written for those who have a stash of used K-cups and who are curious as to how they might re-use them.

Call the city, and ask if they have a recycling program for them, Kathleen. Some places do. 🙂

Jann Littleton, THANK YOU for the prompt to reject all single-use plastics! I work in apartments maintenance, and one of the tenants who moved out left behind a huge bag of Kirkland Keurig-cups. I’m slowly going through the stash, cutting the cups open and using the coffee in my regular coffee-maker. But what to do with these damned cups! The only thing that really makes sense to me is to use them as seed-starters: everything else seems like it uses yet more resources. The plastic will still never break down; even so-called biodegradable plastics don’t REALLY ever break down, they just erode into tiny pieces that we can’t see.

Actually, MK, I have no idea. I make my coffee the old fashioned way too. I don’t own a Keurig. Some folks like the convenience of them I guess.

Sorry, Evelyn. I don’t own a Keurig. I get the cups from a friend. I’m not familiar with the difference in brands. Hopefully someone else will chime in here.

Thanks
evelyn

Great idea, Elaine! You can share your photos on my Happy Hooligans facebook page if you’d like. I’d love to see them!

I use a old chopstick to loosen and knock the coffee out to put in garden then over paper (it can get a little messy) I pull the filter out cut a hole in it and you can pull it around to take it out. pretty much how you peal the lid off of it. I use a small cardboard cutter to cut off the top because I reuse them too.

Me too! You could punch small holes in the sides to let light shine through!

I think these ideas are great. So many uses for them. I’m having a really hard time trying to clean them out. Is there a trick? I use the Kirkland brand (don’t think that makes a difference, but I can’t get the filter out of them). Any tricks on how to do that? Thanks!

So creative and ingenious. Glad you’re not nearly as lame as we are, Willie.

K-Cups plug the whole and use them for coloring Easter eggs. You would need quail eggs or some small one’s for sure. Love your ideas. Thanks

These are all lame. I will continue to just throw them out!

But if you drink Tim Horton or Starbucks what do they use the cups for, trash that is landfill so if we can reuse the k cups for any reason is better

You just have to use hot water and rip
the filter away

Yes, true……….but as long as people are going to use them and they will,
might as well find a way to use them 🙂

Someone wrote above that they had checked and they are indeed Recyclable. 🙂

Exactly what I was thinking!!

Amen happy hooligans…Dunn is a blooming idiot and judging by the comment is an uneducated fool. Dunn is without a doubt…the moron. Geesh!!!

Actually, Dunn, an intelligent human being would choose to express him or herself without resorting to profanities and name-calling. You probably have a very valid opinion, but unfortunately, in trying to express it, you’ve made yourself look like… a moron.

Only morons drink Keurig.

I use some of the flavored coffees but most of the time I use my refillable cups I bought a dollar general store (4 in a pack for about 10 dollars) I love my regular coffee brand and buying it in the k-cups is too expensive. Refills save money and the environment..a little at a time.

Snow man or Santa ornaments

Use 5 cups
Place one rightside up
Glue second cup rightside down on top of first
Do this again with last two cups then glue them on top of each other
Spray paint white for a snow man; red for santa
Add all the accessories as needed such as black belt from felt, cotton ball spread out as a bread, wiggle eyes, small pom poms for buttons, felt for scarf, etc.
Spray paint last (5th) cup black or red and add a felt base of black for snowman hat or a cotton ball that has been stretched out long to go around the red one to use for Santa. Glue hat in place. Glue gun would be best

You can use the solofill reusable k-cups and fill with your own coffee with the newer Keurig machines. All you have to do is cut the top ring that says “Keurig brewed” and glue it to the top of the reusable cup. The machine will read the label, allowing you to brew your own brand if coffee. 😊

Thanks for sharing your thoughts with us, Viva.

You’re right. You cant re-use the plastic k-cups for your own coffee. Once the lid is peeled off you can’t use it to brew. They MUST have a lid. Good call Lisa!

You can also make it a matching game by having them match up the sounds (fill 2 cups with corn, 2 with rice, etc.

They don’t make them for the newer machines yet.

If you google it, you’ll find some instructions and video tutorials, Sharon.

Thanks so much, Jaimi! I’m glad you enjoyed the post!

Good advice, Josie. Thanks!

I would only use LED lights for this. Other ones may get to hot and cause a fire.

Drea – I went to the Terracycle.com website and they don’t currently have a program for the K-Cups, only Nespresso….Sad, because I would LOVE to have a program to recycle these. Perhaps if a bunch of people gathered together and made a request of Terracycle, they might put together a program for K-Cups.
Needless to say, I LOVE the Terracycle.com website and all of it’s current recycle programs!! Hope they add more!! I have joined their site and I look forward to receiving their newsletter and future information……Thank you, Drea, for having directed us to such a wonderful and useful site!!
I too LOVE all of the crafty ideas posted here…..I would also love to be able to recycle my K-Cups. I already take the painstaking time to remove the coffee from the plastic cups to use in my garden…but sadly hadn’t found many things to do with the plastic cup…..
Let’s ALL leave as small a footprint on this magnificent Earth as we possibly can…..<3

So sorry you are suffering, but so glad you’ve found something that helps you. We as a society take everyday chores and things for granted. Hope you will feel better soon and continue to heal! Sending good vibes your way! 🙂

There’s definitely a difference between convenience and serving a useful purpose. I’m glad yours makes life a little easier for you, Julie, but so sorry you’re suffering. Prayers of strength and healing going out to you. x

I am basically bedridden and VERY sick. The Keurig has saved me. I have it near me, and can not only use it for teas (very comforting) or coffee for a kick, but use it to make cup-a-soup or many instant soups with the hot water feature. This gives me a bit of independence, and is one less thing I have to ask others to do for me. So, NO. It is NOT a bad idea to buy one.

I think the plastic is to thin and would be dangerous but…. If you filled in the hole, it would be a great way to make small wax portions for a melter.

I had had mine replaced and I use the reusable filters from Keurig so this is not a valid statement. Also when I called Keurig to ask them if I needed to grind the coffee in a special way they said it makes no difference how it is ground as all companies use different grinds for different blends.

I don’t own a Keurig, but I’ve seen some tutorials online (you can google it). I’ve seen people mention that you dump the grounds out, and then use a knife to scrape around the opening to release the mesh thingy? Does that make sense? Again, I’ve not done it myself, so I’m not exactly sure. Hopefully someone else will chime in here, Joyce.

Lola, If this is the case with useing your own coffee in the Keurig machines, then why does Keurig make and sell an insert for their machine, complete with a small reusable filter, intended for this very use?

Good question!

Great ideas, Karen! Thank you!

That sounds adorable, Mindy!

Make snowmen out of Styrofoam balls

I was thinking the same thing, Stacy! They’d make great snowman hats!

At some point you’re going to have to take the frozen herbs out of the k-cups, so I would personally prefer to them all at once, pop them all into a baggy, so it’s easy to grab one and toss into a sauce when you need one. I guess it comes down to personal preference. Sure, you could throw all the frozen, plastic cups in a baggy, and remove the herbs from them at the time of use. 6 of one, half-dozen of the other. 🙂 As for doubling them up, because each k-cup has a hole in the bottom, doubling them up before you seal the hole is just an added measure to prevent the water from leaking out.

Thanks, Nicole! Glad you liked them!