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Sunday, May 18, 2008

What shall we do with the lint?

I spent a good part of the morning with my arm inside the dryer vent – up to my shoulder – extracting the wads of dryer lint that have lodged themselves in there.

So here is a question:How many tons of dryer lint are generated every day (every week) in the industrialized nations? And is there any possible use for it? (Fertilizer? Fuel? Sculptures by Jeff Koons?) Is this an untapped resource, if only we could recognize it? Or am I daft?

Later I climbed up onto the roof (having first slithered through a casement window) to see from whence came the cataract just outside the bathroom window. Lo and behold: The gutter was completely afloat because the leader was completely clogged with leaf debris. So, I stuck my hand down there too, as far as it would go – which wasn’t all that far.

Clogged lines seems to be the day's theme. Or unclogging.

4 comments:

Mickey and Flea said...

Jeff Koons is a great idea. How about lint for house insulation? Could be the next straw bale idea.
I'm also wondering how we can made used appliances, esp. refrigerators, into housing of some sort. Not great insulators though

Unknown said...

A widely known technique among Feueranzünder (q.v.) is to drench a modest clump of dryer lint with lighter fluid, then pop it into the fireplace underneath some properly laid fuel, light it, and ..... presto.
It's an economic riddle why dryer lint is not a commodity in hot demand, with full-blown futures trading and mandatory recycling / municipal pickup, boy scout
/ girl scout door-to-door solicitations, etc.

pond said...

I always thought that the purpose of the lint was to provide home building material for Spatula -the ghost that lives in the dryer and eats socks.

Unknown said...

Finally I realized the answer to this question is annoyingly obvious. The purpose of dryer lint is for supplementary bellybutton warmth. If you don't produce enough naturally, take a generous pinch from your dryer, press it carefully onto a strip of scotch tape of suitable length laid out upside down, and strap it around your middle.