What is the source of dust?

[luchog]

I read somewhere that a sizable fraction of house dust was textile fibers. FWIW.

I can certainly vouch for that by personal experience. When you wear all-black clothing, and have black bath towels, it's hardly surprising when the the dust that shows up all over the house is predominantly black. The towels seem to be the worst offenders.

 

[novaphile]

Me too. Except in my case the towels are royal blue, and so is the dust in the bathroom.

I've heard that "belly-button fluff" is always the same colour as the bath towel too

 

[Venom]

I was alarmed when I wiped the visor of my work tractor with a napkin and saw tiny black particulates, probably from the diesel exhaust all around us in the dockyard.

Looked closely at my arms and even my face in the mirror and these dust particles were everywhere. Nasty stuff and more motivation to quit soon; I heard a large portion of that gets stuck in the lungs.

 

[Trebuchet]

I read somewhere that a sizable fraction of house dust was textile fibers. FWIW.

Not exactly dust, but in my house the airborne detritus is mostly cat hair.

 

[EHocking]

I was alarmed when I wiped the visor of my work tractor with a napkin and saw tiny black particulates, probably from the diesel exhaust all around us in the dockyard.

Looked closely at my arms and even my face in the mirror and these dust particles were everywhere. Nasty stuff and more motivation to quit soon; I heard a large portion of that gets stuck in the lungs.

This was one of the first things I noticed when I lived in London. And that was just walking to and from work.

It had improved 15 years later by the time we left for “home”, but then again, I can remember the same grime problem when working in Melbourne, Australia.

I always thought that cyclists riding in large cities really weren’t doing their health a great benefit while sucking in (especially) diesel fumes while running all those red lights and mowing down pedestrians on the footpaths.