Kindling gone green
Jan 27, 2010 
17 Comments
Confession time.
I’ve always felt a little odd about just tossing dryer lint in the trash. I just felt like it had a higher purpose in life.
Hey, I never claimed to be normal.
Keep reading. I have a point.
The point is…it’s useful! Dryer lint is useful!
Take it out of the filter, ball it up and shove it in a toilet paper tube and what do you have?
A big hunk of trash. Or…kindling for your fireplace.
So, instead of tossing out your lint, save up toilet paper rolls, paper towel rolls and even wrapping paper tubes. Cut the longer ones into smaller sections, stuff them with lint and you have yourself some great firestarters.
And now I want to go watch Firestarter. When’s the last time you saw that movie?
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fabulous!! I have an abundance of both of these things – will do this now!
cool! you can make paper out of dryer lint, also!
What a clever idea! I’ve used the lint itself as tinder, but never thought of stuffing tubes with it. That’s awesome.
If only I had a fireplace…
every time i throw it away i wonder “what it could become.” great idea! i don’t have a fireplace, though, but i want an outdoor fire pit. maybe this could be my excuse to make/buy one!
Well, now I wish I had a fireplace; that’s a fantastic idea!
That’s a great idea! Add a little melted wax from leftover candle stubs, not much, but enough to make everything stick together, and cut them even smaller, and you have a great little fire bud to take camping, or even use in the Chimney Charcoal starter.
I love this idea! I read about it when you first posted but I didn’t have a fire. So I started stuffing toilet rolls anyhow and have realised I have a friend who does have a fire and now she has some firestarters… and i feel all green
Just brilliant. Had to share your post with my network on Facebook, they thought so too!
Great idea. Also, if you do NOT use softners, you can toss the lint out in the yard or stick it in trees and the birds will use it to help make their nests. Softner is NOT good for their feathers though, it does something to their natural oils.
Has anyone ever put yummy smelling things in the tube also? Would stuffing a cinnamon stick in with the lint work to make the fire smell nice? Or herbs?
If you don’t have a fireplace (I don’t) you could still do this & just give these great firestarters to your local camp. I am sure they will use them all summer!
Not that we are EVER short of tp tubes … but you can also use those cardboard egg cartons. Stuff the egg wells with dryer lint and cut them apart. Voila!
(now we know why so many house fires are started by dryer lint … :\
I worry about the process of burning and the release of the chemicals involved from the lint which is composed of residual chemicals of washing agents, dryer sheets etc. Any thoughts on that?
All I know to do to work around that is use the most natural laundry products that you can make and/or find.
It’s hardly “green” to use a clothes-dryer in the first place! How about using the solar clothes dryer instead. That would actually be green.
Dryer lint would contain all sorts of fibres – including synthetic plastics – probably not the best sort of thing to release into the atmosphere we and our children breath. Wool and silk fibres burned together produce cyanide gas for example – nice!
If you MUST use a dryer then rather than burning the fluff, save it up and use it for insulting your home!
Hey, thanks for the input, Rob! We love line-drying our clothes (as you might find in some of my other posts), but generally if the weather calls for a fire in the fireplace, the conditions aren’t exactly ideal for drying our clothes outside.
As for chemicals and such, I suppose that would depend on just how many synthetic fabrics you have in your family’s closets. I’ve even had people tell me that wood smoke is toxic, so really, short of just allowing ourselves to freeze there aren’t great options. Or perhaps I should say, there aren’t options that are going to please everyone.
I honestly had never thought of insulating my house with dryer lint. While that sounded clever momentarily, I then pictured myself standing out in the street as my house burns to the ground and as I try to explain to the fireman why I thought insulating my home with something so very flammable was a good idea. “But, Chief, some guy on the internet said it was green!”
While I try to be green in many ways, there are places I just have to draw the line.
We put roll it into a ball and Put it out on the fence so the Birds can use it to make their nests.. I will have to try your idea with the extra!
Thanks!