Lint Book- Material Exploration
NCSS Seminar
[Fall 2025]
Can lint, the very end product of textiles, be revived as another form of textiles?
How can we utilize this form of waste to keep it out of our air and waters?
Using a variety of methods, I sheetformed, felted, and sewed lint together. Since lint is mostly made of short fibers, it needs to be combined with longer fibers to cling together, so I combined it with some other fiber waste such as paper pulp and wool. The final results were these marbled sheets of felt. Each page tells a story of the clothing it came from and the person who wore it through small details like a sequin to a feather and even human hair.
My conclusions so far of this ongoing experiment is that lint can be used as a filler material for textile composites. It is incredibly soft but due to its harmful contents it would best serve as an insulation or packaging material that is sealed away and unexposed to the environment, as it can still shed microfibers. Many solutions for preventing microfiber pollution already exist but we need to spread and promote these alternative methods. Some safer methods of drying laundry would be by line-drying, heat pump dryers, and the use of proper filters and ventilation. In tandem, more regulations need to be put into place for reducing microfiber pollution.
This speculative experiment is meant to bring attention to the dangers of microfiber emissions, by presenting a physical representation of a microscopic pollutant.