As a perennial evergreen shrub, the coffee tree provides important amounts of litter to the soil and helps to maintain soil organic matter levels as well as cation exchange capacity, thus reducing leaching losses. Caffeine is also referred as to a natural herbicide able to control Amaranthus spinosus seedlings (Orwa et al., 2009).
In some cases, coffee pulp and hulls are thrown into rivers and lakes near the processing regions, which cause serious environmental concerns (Brand et al., 2000).
Feeding livestock with coffee by-products is a way to alleviate their environmental impact. Pulp and hulls may also be used as green manure.