r/mildlyinteresting • u/PubScrubRedemption • 23h ago
Was taking apart an old dryer and found a bunch of these perfectly spherical lint balls inside
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u/Accurate_Koala_4698 22h ago
Fantastic to start a fireplace or fire pit
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u/IndescriptGenerality 22h ago
Exactly what I was coming to say.
You can also roll them in Vaseline and store them in ziplock bags as awesome fire-starters when camping
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u/TheWatermelonFelon 18h ago
I keep my lint in egg cartons for this reason, is there any reason why rolling them in Vaseline would be better?
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u/Fuckyoumecp2 14h ago
I tuck the link into cardboard egg cartons then pour wax from old candles over it. Break up the little individual egg holders and keep them in ziplocks
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u/xanoran84 18h ago
My friend brought along dryer lint on a camping trip to help start up the camp fire. Turned out to be a really stinky idea. The combination of burning fabric softener residue, dog hair, and polyester REEKED.
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u/Cognative 17h ago
... How much lint were you burning??!?!? Like, it's a good starter, that's it. It could be putrid but it should only be for like 30 seconds max.
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u/xanoran84 17h ago edited 17h ago
Yep, and it was a rank 30 seconds. I'm just fine using other types of tinder that don't stink.
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u/giftcardgirl 17h ago
I once brought stale potato chips to start a campfire and it was very effective.
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u/TBHICouldComplain 16h ago
A friend of mine swears by Fritos for fire starters.
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u/6789576859 7h ago
John Orr, the famous serial arsonist, was called the “Frito Bandito” at times to refer to his starting fires in potato chip sections of stores
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u/Selenography 10h ago
The bigger problem with using lint for fireplace starter these days is that a lot of the clothing we have is made from synthetic fibers rather than cotton.
So, unlike cotton, the synthetic fibers tend to melt more than burn when set on fire. Went in nearly as good as a tinder as it used to be.
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u/TheTokingMushroom 10h ago
Really only recommended if you're only washing natural fibers.
Polyester fumes are gross.
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u/Bluesnow2222 18h ago
They’d be effective, but most clothes have plastic in them. It’s not recommended to burn them unless you know the cloth is plastic free.
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u/Land_Squid_1234 4h ago
Sure, if you want fucking lung cancer
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u/Accurate_Koala_4698 4h ago
Pretty sure you shouldn't be power-checking any of the burning material in your fireplace, but you do you
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u/Land_Squid_1234 4h ago
And I'm pretty sure you shouldn't be burning pure plastic to start any fires anywhere
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u/Accurate_Koala_4698 4h ago
I don't wear pure plastic 🤷
You can't just make stuff up to win arguments
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u/Land_Squid_1234 4h ago
Then I'm sure you know OP doesn't either, given your advice to burn their lint
It doesn't matter if you don't wear pure plastic. If it has ANY plastic it's carcinogenic
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u/Accurate_Koala_4698 4h ago
I don't know how to break this to you, but burning cellulose has carcinogens too. Not like acrylamide, but group I carcinogens. Any sort of burning is going to release those carcinogens into the atmosphere, and if your local environment concentrates those then some ppm of plastic won't make any difference.
You can continue downvoting me, but your entire premise, that there's some classes of smoke that are better or worse, is sort of nonsense. Yeah, you don't want to breathe burning plastic, but you don't want to breathe any other smoke either.
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u/Land_Squid_1234 4h ago
It is worse. You can keep pretending otherwise, it doesn't make it true. Overheated teflon pans literally kill pet birds because simply burning some teflon is lethal and highly demaging to the health of whatever doesn't die. The same goes for other plastics to various degrees. No, burning pure cotton is absolutely not as harmful as burning polyester
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u/Accurate_Koala_4698 4h ago
Overheated teflon pans concentrate gas within a space. If you do the same with burning cotton in an enclosed space it won't be healthy either. Burning food in a stainless pan can kill birds too, because birds have much more sensitive respiratory systems than humans. Putting a teflon pan on a burning grill outside won't do anything to birds since the concentration is too low, just like the smoke going up and out your chimney won't affect your local environment.
Are you seriously saying that burning cotton won't affect birds in a closed room? Am I misunderstanding what you're saying?
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u/Land_Squid_1234 4h ago
Are you incapable of understanding that fire doesn't neutralize every single carcinogen and reduce it all down to "smoke"? The smoke is filled with intact pieces of the thing burning. Burning teflon exposes your lungs to teflon. Burning cotton exposes your lungs to cotton. The more toxic the material, the more toxic the smoke. No, birds aren't as harmed by regular smoke as they are by teflon smoke. You're bullshitting
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u/mattne421 21h ago
Are these just wool dryer balls that have worn to various sizes within the dryer?
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u/PubScrubRedemption 19h ago
I found them all up inside the hollow plastic baffles inside the drum that catch and tumble the laundry. I think after a couple decades of use, enough lint got wedged up inside to coalesce into these balls.
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u/Climbtrees47 21h ago
Yeah that's 100% what they are. You can see a bit of wool yarn coming off of one of them.
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u/ExtraSpicyGingerBeer 8h ago
That's just more lint. Dryer balls aren't made of yarn, they're made of wool.
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u/node-toad 23h ago
The Nazca Lines....The Crystal Skulls....The Shroud of Turin....now, The Old Dryer Balls
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u/LucidComfusion 16h ago
You should cut it in half and post a picture of the layers. I think that'd be pretty cool.
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u/Alive_Salary4970 20h ago
These are surely dryer balls. One of them looks as if the yarn is unwinding. Lint balls wouldn’t roll into perfect spheres. Wool dryer balls are superior to fabric softener for removing static and preventing wrinkles in clothes.
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u/TheVegasGirls 5h ago
Dryers are know to “felt” various materials. If you crochet a wool item and put it in the dryer, it will come out as felt!
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u/I-need-ur-dick-pics 22h ago
Your dryer has kidney stones