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Lint

This experiment was inspired by my Mom. As she was cleaning the lint filter on the clothes drier, she jokingly asked where the lint comes from and what it is good for. That was all it took to set my mind to working.

To learn more about lint, you will need:

  • a clothes drier
  • some laundry
  • paper
  • a magnifying glass (optional)

You may have to save this experiment until the next time you help with the laundry. (You do help with the laundry, don't you?) After the clothes are washed and dried, look at the lint filter. You should see a layer of lint over the filter. Remove the lint and put it on a sheet of paper. Where did all that lint come from? Lets look closer and see.

Carefully pull apart some of the lint. Look at it closely. If you have a magnifying glass, you can use it for an even closer look. What do you see? Looking through my lint, the first thing I notice is some strands of hair. Some are from the dog, some are from the cat, and some are from Nancy. I don't usually find much of my own hair, since I don't have much to lose.

Still, those hairs only make up a tiny bit of the lint. Where did the rest of it come from? Look at the color of the lint. Compare that to the color of the clean clothes you just dried. If you washed a lot of red clothes, your lint is probably fairly red. If there were lots of dark blues, then the lint will be a darker blue color. The lint is coming from your clothes!

Look closely at a shirt. It is made of threads that are woven together. Are the threads coming out of your clothes? Compare the lint to the threads. No, the fibers in the lint are much smaller than the threads. We have to look closer to find the source.

Get a piece of thread. Don't rip one out of your shirt!!! Instead, get a short piece of thread from a sewing kit. Ask your Mom or Dad, and they can probably help you find some. Lay the thread on the paper and look at it closely. You may want your magnifying glass again. What do you see? The thread is made up of even smaller threads. These fibers are twisted together to form the thread that is used in your clothing.

Now we know the source of the lint. It is made of fibers from the threads in your clothing. Wait a minute! Does that mean your clothes are coming apart? Yes. As you go through the day, your movements pull on your clothing and break some of those tiny fibers. After a day of walking, running, sitting, playing, and doing laundry, quite a few of those tiny fibers break.

Then you put the clothes into the washing machine. In the water, the threads swell up, letting the loose bits of fiber float free. In the spin cycle, these fibers stick to your clothing. In the drier, hot air blows in to dry the clothes. Then it is pulled out through the lint filter. It carries the lint with it, to be trapped in the lint filter.

Now take a minute to think about how much lint came from your clothes. You clothes are going away! Go to the closet and get out two pairs of pants. You want your newest pants and your oldest, favorite pants. Sit down and compare them. Look at the older pants. Think about the areas where the cloth gets stretched, pulled and rubbed. If you are like me, the knees get a lot of that. Look at the cloth of the knees. Does it look different? Does it feel different? It probably looks a bit worn and feels softer and thinner. That is because all the stretching breaks more of the tiny fibers. Most of the lint is coming from these "well used" areas on your clothing.

Now that we know where lint comes from, what can you do with it? Most people just throw it away, but it does have uses. If you go camping, take a bag of lint with you. It burns very well and makes a good starter for your campfire. If you like crafts, I have seen pictures made by gluing different colors of lint to a canvas, making a picture. If you need more red, wash a load of red clothes. There are even recipes on the internet for using lint to make modeling clay and homemade paper. Too bad there is not a way to put it back into the wornout knees of my favorite jeans.

Have a wonder filled week.

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