Dryer Lint.....

I have access to heaps of dryer lint, any ideas?

Dip wads of it in veggie oil. Great fire starters.

Or add it to the compost pile...it's mostly cotton/wool.

I don't need polyester, rayon, dacron, and nylon in my compost.

Fuel
It'll light up easy, bit not likely to last.

Insulation
This is a handy use. Needs to be kept dry-the natural fibers will decay. There may be some bugs attracted to it as a feed source. Because it will burn readily, I would not use it to insulate my home, but there are plenty of uses: chicken coop, greenhouse, around a thermal storage tank.

Filling
How about a dog bed? Stuffed animals/dolls/craft items. Padding for chairs, bench cushions. Sew it up make a draft stopper

I don't need polyester, rayon, dacron, and nylon in my compost.

Most synthetic fabrics do not produce significant lint. Perhaps 1% over the life of the fabric.
Leaves from 1 raking of the front yard would probably contribute more petroleum residues than a lifetime of synthetic fabric lint.

Steven Baxter wrote:I have access to heaps of dryer lint, any ideas?

It works for paper making. I've seen sheets of handmade paper nicely speckled from colors in the lint, especially pale blues from blue jeans. A lot of the work in making handmade paper is preparing the fiber and dryer lint is close to perfect.

On the other hand, if this is the public's dryer lint from a laundromat I probably wouldn't touch it. As a group "the public" uses to many strange things for me to be comfortable with any public waste that I can't clearly identify what it's made up of.

Put it outside as nesting material for birds, they love it.

In the winter when my clothes line would only serve as a place to freeze our clothes, I just pitch the lint outside. the birds quickly take it and line their nests with soft warmth.

Even in the winter you can dry your clothes partially outside before they freeze. If I put them outside before going on the indoor clothes rack they dry significantly faster.

Johan Thorbecke wrote:Even in the winter you can dry your clothes partially outside before they freeze. If I put them outside before going on the indoor clothes rack they dry significantly faster.

I agree totally...we dry on racks inside or on hangers in our upstairs hall and out on the line most of the winter. Wood heat makes them dry fast (over night) and maybe the wet clothes add a little moisture to the air. The hardest part is cold fingers hanging them out below freezing.

I have been using dryer lint in the bottom of a lot of my pots in the container garden this year. My thinking is that it might work to retain/wick moisture and also hold air. (If I had tons of wool, I would use that instead of dryer lint...) My mom has been sewing felt liners for many of her pots and I have done a little pot lining with old otherwise seemingly totally useless wool remnants I have been saving for years waiting for a purpose (patchwork blanket made of all the old wool socks I ever knew, I'm sorry, but I have abandoned you as a concept).

After working on a hydroponic farm several years ago I am apt to experiment a lot with substrates and half substrate/half soil containers. It's interesting to think about for people who don't have access to usable soil...

I have mixed it with Petroleum Jelly and used it as a fire starter in the past. I once threw it in the vermiculture bin thinking that the lint would be mostly made up of cotton but the worms wouldn't touch it. It was a bad idea. We line dry our clothes now so no more dryer lint. I have really noticed the difference on how my clothes last much longer since line drying, and I have saved about 35 dollars a month off our electric bill!

the ideas of mixing it with soil are interesting, would like more info on that..as I also have some access to some dryer lint..(although I do hang nearly all my clothes to dry)

Hi, I'm new here, but I thought I'd just jump in!

We prefer to line dry as much as possible, so our dryer lint pile will eventually diminish, but for now we use it as a fire starter when making a small fire in the fire pit. Works great to get a jump start.

I'm not concerned about synthetic fibres since our few pieces of synthetic clothing are always line dried.

If you had the sort of quantity available from laundromats, it could make good insulation. Borax could be mixed in as this makes it distasteful to vermin. Check out the insulation made from scrap denim.

I stuff mine into paper egg cartons. Makes great fire starter.

you can make clay for craft projects.

http://familycrafts.about.com/od/claytyperecipes/a/dryerlintclay.htm

Since it is mostly cotton or wool I have fed it to worms in the past. Not at a very significant volume though.