The hotel laundry nightmare: lint and hairs on finished textiles

Its not the feedback any commercial laundry wants to receive from its hotel customers:

“Our guests are finding hairs on their fresh bedsheets and towels.”

Similarly, visible lint on finished textiles is a clear quality issue in any laundry.

Other quality issues such as worn textiles, holes or stains are usually picked up either by the eagle-eyed laundry operators whose job this is, or by computer operated cameras which are often AI trained. Hairs and lint are more difficult to catch, often barely visible, or perhaps just on the other side of the sheet/towel so definitely not visible to operator or camera.

An ‘acceptable’ rate of rewash is seen to be around 3%, but if the problem is simply not picked up then even rewash is not the solution.

Why, even with state-of-the-art equipment, might hairs or lint remain on finished textiles and what solutions are there? 

1. Laundry hygiene

All commercial laundries are by their nature dusty places, with fibres, lint, hairs, etc in abundance.  If hygiene is not attended to, problems quickly mount up.

By ensuring a hygienic workflow, that is to say, protecting textiles once clean, ensuring operators wear appropriate workwear (e.g. hairnets) and maintaining a clean working environment, a laundry can reduce environmental risk factors to a minimum.

2. Overloading washing and/or drying equipment

When equipment is overloaded, there is not sufficient rinsing water/dryer space to allow hairs and lint to be removed and separated from the textiles being processed.

Always adhere to manufacturer’s guidelines regarding maximum capacities, this really helps ensure good finished quality.

3. Textile quality

New textiles will always shed more fibres during the first number of washes. Lesser quality textiles generally consist of shorter fibres which shed more easily. The type of textile (cotton or other) can also play a role.

Paying attention to the desired quality of textiles helps

4. Ultra-low water usage in modern washing equipment

The most modern tunnel washers may use as little as 2 litres/kg of textiles washed, which means that there is quite simply less water available to flush away hairs and fibres or lint.

Inline filtration can be especially effective at removing fibres from wash water, ensuring that these are completely removed and eliminating this quality problem.

Wientjens has decades of expertise in filtration for laundries, if your laundry has a problem with hairs or lint on finished textiles, do contact us, we’ll be happy to advise.