Under-Appreciated Lint

If you were one of the folks who signed that petition from the Society for the Prevention of Continental Drift, Howard Leland has another great cause you may want to support.

I ran into Howard this week, at the Whistle Stop Café. While I finished my coffee, he educated me on the subject of lint. You know? That stuff you find in your pocket and the clothes dryer filter.

Seems that many people think lint is useless: a nuisance at best, and sometimes a fire hazard.

That view, Howard told me, was very short-sighted and ill-informed. Then he generously shared his accumulated store of lint lore.

Take lint as a fire hazard, for example. Lint building up in your dryer filter can ignite and burn down your home. But lint makes good kindling when you want to start fires.

Need modeling clay? Take lint, flour and water: and you've got a sort of substitute for modeling clay. Lint, by itself, or stuck to construction paper, is a fair substitute for cotton balls: so a person could sculpt clouds and snowmen from the stuff. Families with school-age kids: take note.

Stuff lint in tube socks, and you've got a draft-stopper for the bottom of doors.

Lint makes decent compost: or you can use it to make homemade paper.

And, if you've got any lint left over after that, leave outside. Birds can use lint for nesting material.

Howard Leland's dream is to open a Museum of Lint here in Loonfoot Falls.