What Do You Do With The Dryer Lint?

Yes, my question is a serious one! And if you answered, "I throw it away," let me offer you a few other alternatives.

Dryer lint has useful purposes. For one thing, you can add it to your compost pile.  On occasion, I do add it to my compost pile. But that isn't my favorite use of dryer lint.  This picture shows my favorite use of dryer lint.

These are toilet paper tubes stuffed with dryer lint. Toilet paper tubes are collected in my house.  We do not throw them away. They are stored in my  laundry room while they are waiting to be stuffed with dryer lint.

What do I do with them?  They make great fire starters!  Whether you are camping or starting a fire in your fireplace on a cold winter night, one of these will get the fire going in no time.  Of course, this works best when the lint comes from cotton clothes.

I know some people who run a string through the tube and then dip them in wax.  They burn slower that way. Currently, I am out of ones that were dipped in wax so all I have is what is shown here.  Heating up wax is not my most favorite thing to do (especially in the summer) so I will collect up quite a few over the year, then dip them all at once. This chore is usually saved for sometime in the fall.  Any left over wax can be made into candles.

In the meantime, I put three of them in a baggie and store them in a Rubbermaid bin in my garage.  This set is now ready to go until dipping time in the fall.

So save up that dryer lint!  It is much cheaper and less frustrating than rolling up newspaper to get a fire started!