to put coffee grounds down the sink?

[Huppopapa]

A friend of my parents, who built the sewer under Hong Kong harbour, told me when I was a child that one should never put tea down a drain as it would block, but that coffee grounds were an excellent size and texture to scour the drains and keep them clear. I have stuck to that throughout adulthood.
DP thinks this is nonsense on stilts.
Do any of you MNers have experience of having had blocked drains and discovering a coffeeberg was the cause?

We've had blocked drains and the causes have been the neighbours flushing nappies, a fatberg, a whole dead fish which 'smelt funny', and a dead rat. Never coffee grounds. And what he said sounds like it could be true.

Our work sink got totally clogged up with coffee grounds! It was really stuffed full of them in the u bend bit. I wouldn't put them down the sink...

Definitely had problems with coffee grounds and Victorian drains before

Modern drains might cope though

Sounds like a rubbish theory to me.

My grandmother told me that putting coffee grounds down the sink would clear out other things, so I always did. Then my drains got blocked and I could see that the fat which was blocking the drain had a load of coffee grounds in it....so I stopped. Whilst the coffee didn’t cause the blockage, it definitely wasn’t helping.

I compost them as they are fantastic for that supposedly. I try not to put anything down the sink it's not worth the plumbers fee.

I don't put any "solids" down the sink, however small, nor do I put liquid cooking oil down the sink either.

Put them in your garden supposed to be good for the plants.

I wouldn’t put them down the sink as I think it would cause problems especially if you live in an older property.

Yes you are. You shouldn't put anything down the sink except water and nothing down the loo except paper. Compost it if you don't want it to go into landfill.

I put them on the garden because they are supposed to be bad for slugs and snails. Don't know what they do to the plants.

I should say liquids but not oil. I sound a bit strict! Obvs washing up water is fine but no big lumps.

(visions of PJ scooping poo out of the khazi...)

Obvs, putting nothing down there except coffee grounds - see the office story above - is daft, but as a sewerage expert had told me that coffee in running water works, I was wondering whether that has been borne out in practice. Statements of what one 'should' or 'should not' do don't really move the discussion forward: what is people's actual experience?

I put coffee grounds on the garden and am very careful not to put any fat at all down the sink.

I put them down the sink because they supposedly sharpen the garbage disposal blades.

The sink in our first house got blocked with coffee grounds.

If you don't have a garden or compost bin then offer them to someone who does. I'd happily come and collect them.

Tell more, Callme. Did you put the grounds in running water? Did they stick into something else or just form a plug?

I just put them down the sink with running water. After we'd been there for about a year nothing would go down the sink, so a handyman came round, unscrewed the pipe under the sink and it was full of coffee grounds. They had just formed a plug over time.

I switched to instant, and DH bought a Nespresso machine!

I've also had experience of a coffee grounds blocking an office sink. I've occasionally but coffee grounds down our kitchen sink with no problem. I suspect in the office there is not enough water flowing through the sink on a regular basis (we never did washing up etc).