Introduction
As you use your dryer, a lot of lint builds up on the lint trap. You need to clean out that lint to minimize the risks of fire. Excess lint buildup on the lint trap can also make the dryer use more power and even damage its components. If your dryer breaks down, you can search for “dryer repair near me” and hire a technician to fix it. However, instead of throwing out the dryer lint, you can use it in many ways. Let’s check them out.
The Uses
- Make fire-starting logs – Seasoned campers and hunters know the use of dryer lint very well. It’s precious to them and they never throw it in the trash. Lint collected on the lint trap is the accumulation of extremely dry worn-out fibers, dust, and other such materials. It is highly flammable and that’s why lint traps should always be kept clean. However, that also means lint can act as an excellent fire starter.
You can make fire-starting logs with lint and save a lot of money during your camping or hunting expeditions. Get a bunch of empty toilet paper rolls or paper towel rolls and stuff them with lint. During camping trips, you just need to add a few sparks with your flint and the fire-starting logs would start burning very quickly. You can use these burning logs to burn dry wood collected at the camping site. It’s free and reliable. Make sure to store these fire-starting logs in a vacuum-sealed jar or can to keep them dry.
- Prevent weeds and leak-proof garden containers – Get a lot of lint and line the bottom of garden containers with that stuff. Lint trapped by the dryer is usually very dense and if you’re not satisfied with it, you can accumulate a lot of lint over a few weeks and press them with a roller to make them denser. The layer of lint can trap soil in your garden container from leaking out and will also soak up excess moisture. That’s very helpful if you plan to keep potted plants inside the home.
Even if you decide to keep those containers out in the garden, it’s going to help in many ways. The layer of lint lining the container won’t allow weed from spouting. Lint is a superior option over plastic sheets and other synthetic materials since it’s free and biodegradable. Your plants will also grow better in a container with lint since it would reduce moisture loss. Lint can also be used as mulch over the soil in the container.
- Insulation – Lint is basically a bunch of dust, fibers, and all kinds of matter dried out to the limit. That’s why it is very light and traps a lot of air and can act as an excellent insulation material. Regular insulation is very expensive. On each square foot, you may spend around $2 for insulation material. That brings the cost of insulating a standard home to thousands of dollars. It can even reach five digits. While it’s ridiculous and impractical to accumulate enough lint to insulate your entire home, lint can help with insulation if used strategically.
You can use lint to plug gaps at strategic points in your home. Your home tries to exchange a lot of warm and cold air with the external environment at every opportunity. Most of that happens from the door frame and window frame gaps. Plug in those gaps and you can prevent cold drafts from sinking the temperature inside your home. You can do this by stuffing them with socks full of lint. While this slightly improves the insulation and energy efficiency of your home, major changes like LED bulbs and single-room air conditioners are needed if you want to reduce the energy bill drastically.
- Composting – As mentioned above, lint is a lot of organic materials dried up to the limit. Soil is similar material. It is rocks and minerals turned to dust and clumped together by elements of nature. You can use lint with the soil in the garden container and grow plants in it. Actually, lint is very effective for germinating seeds.
However, the best use of lint for plants is by turning it into nutrients. If you have a compost bin or pile, throw lint into it and let it turn into precious black goo for your plants. If you don’t like to compost, you can simply mix in some lint with the soil and let it degrade and turn into compost inside the container.
However, it’s important to make sure that the collected lint doesn’t have any synthetic material like polyester or chemicals from dryer sheets. For composting, only use lint that has been obtained from drying clothes made of cotton, linen, and other naturally grown fabrics. Instead of using dryer sheets, switch to aluminum balls or woolen balls to get rid of static and wrinkles.
- Padding for shipping – When you need to ship a fragile material back to an online seller or send it to a friend, you can either choose to buy a lot of bubble wrap or simply use lint. Lint is excellent at absorbing shocks and bumps. With enough lint around the fragile product, you can be sure that the item would reach its destination in one piece.
Apart from using lint as padding for shipping products, you can also use it for padding items while storing them. For instance, holiday decorations and other fragile items that are used once every year and sit in the basement for the rest of the year can always use some lint padding.
Conclusion
From making fire starters to feeding compost, dryer lint can be used in many different ways. Make sure to collect the lint from the lint trap in a jar every time you use the dryer. Keeping your dryer lint-free is one of the few things you can do to keep your dryer operating efficiently. If the dryer breaks down, you can always search for “dryer repair near me” and hire professionals to fix it for you.
