Plastic Crisis – Dryer Lint
/A few weeks ago, I laundered the polyester table clothes that were used for our tables at the Butterfly Festival. I don’t usually put synthetic fabrics in the dryer (heat causes them to wear faster) but the table clothes were too big to hang dry without a long clothesline – which I don’t have. It was an opportunity to look at the lint from synthetic fabric.
I used my phone and a hand lens too look at the tangle of thin fibers. It is easy to imagine them breaking up into small segments. They are already microscopic in diameter. This is fabric that does not look fuzzy at all – but is still shedding fibers. It also provides an inkling of what is shed during washing as well (and is mostly leaving in the water).
Years ago, there was a suggestion to put dryer lint out for birds to use as nest material. DON’T DO THAT unless you are sure that what was dried is 100% natural fibers – which is very rare these days.
