Have laundry plants ever received reports from hotel room staff that there is a lot of lint adhering to the linen in the rooms and that the air is filled with dust during room making? So when this situation occurs, which link has the problem? And how should these problems be solved?
New Linen
● The lint shedding is normal. New linen always sheds a small amount of lint. According to Chinese national standards, the lint loss rate of high-grade products should be less than 0.5%. After a few washes and regular use, the shedding will greatly decrease.
● The Lint and dust from new towels stick to bed linens. This can make bed making uncomfortable and leave lint all over the floor.
● There are sharp edges, welding points, and other foreign objects in the inner drum of the washing machine. They easily scratch the fabric, cause fibers to break, and create more lint during use.
● The loading volume of the washer is too light or too heavy. Both can cause extra friction and more fiber damage, so lint stays on the linen after drying.
● The chemicals during washing are too alkaline, and they are not fully neutralized. This can damage the fibers and make them shed more lint.
● During drying, the temperature is high, the speed is low, and the duration is long. Over-drying makes fibers brittle and increases lint.
Solutions for New Linen
● It is a normal phenomenon that the new linen has slight shedding. New linen should be rinsed multiple times before being used at a water temperature below 50℃. The rinsing temperature of pure white linen and colored linen should be under 37℃. The lint will automatically fall off.
● Before washing, people should check the washer drum for sharp objects to avoid unnecessary damage.
● If an industrial washing machine is adopted, people should wash linen according to the standard washing volume. Underloading and overloading should be avoided.
● The drying time should not be too long. The temperature should be less than 80℃. After the linen is 80% dry, cool air should be used to blow the linen so as to restore the elasticity of the fibers.
Old Linen
● Insufficient rinsing
Some laundry plants shorten the process for less dirty items, rinse only once, or skip rinsing entirely. Residual chemicals can damage fibers and cause lint.
● The long washing time causes more friction between fibers and causes the surface cotton fibers to fall off.
● Higher drying temperature causes over-drying, which makes the fibers become brittle and have more lint.
Solutions for Old Linen
● During the first rinse of linen, the water level should be medium, the temperature should be 70℃, and the duration should be 10 minutes. After that, the following rinses should adopt high-level water at room temperature. The rinses should be at least 3 times.
● If the industrial washing machines are used, people should load them according to the standard capacity.
● The pH value should also be paid attention to. The alkalinity should not be strong because some strongly alkaline detergents can damage cotton fibers, making them brittle and more likely to shed.
● The drying time should not be long. The temperature should be less than 80℃. After the linen is 80% dry, cool air should be used to blow the linen so as to restore the elasticity of the fibers.
CLM Laundry Equipment
Despite that, we can adopt more advanced equipment, like a CLM tunnel washer. It has a special lint filtration system that can reduce the lint issue. The CLM dryer connects the lint collector to filter out the lint from the towel. In terms of the washing process, CLM tunnel washer’s washing programs are all controlled by computers to make sure that the washing process is standardized. The addition of chemicals also meets the standards to avoid manual mistakes. These aspects can all reduce the lint residue on the linen.
Three External Reasons
The lint issue is a quality focus that both hotels and laundry plants pay attention to. It not only affects the beauty and feel of the linen, but also directly affects the customers’ check-in experience. When receiving such feedback, simply attributing it to the washing process is not comprehensive. Actually, the appearance of lint is a result of many factors, and should be systematically analyzed. Generally, there are three common but easily neglected external reasons.
● In winter or under dry climatic conditions, the air humidity is low. This easily generates a large amount of static electricity and attracts more lint.
● If customers wear fleece, sweaters, and dark woolen items, the shed fibers will stick to white bed linen. These black or colored fluffs are obvious.
● Sorting is the first line of ensuring the washing quality. If this link is not delicate enough, other foreign objects that are mixed in the linen, like tissues, wet wipes, or hair, will turn into fine paper fibers that are difficult to completely filter out by the naked eye during the washing process.
These fibers will spread all over the linen and entangle with the fibers. Also, they create a rough feeling and gray stains that are hard to remove. This directly reflects the crucial importance of the strictness of front-end sorting.
Conclusion
When facing the complaints about lint, laundry plants should use this kind of refined analysis to turn the vague “quality issue” into a clear “improvement path” and take targeted actions. Optimizing the control of humidity, improving the pre-treatment of specific linen, and strictly obeying the sorting standards all reduce linen from the sources, which improves the cleanliness of linen and customer satisfaction.
Post time: Jan-23-2026