I can’t re-use them.
We stopped using them a while ago, though we still have a box sitting on the dryer. It’s next to the box of laundry sheets. At least once I’ve run a load through the washer with the wrong kind of sheet. Surprise, the dryer sheets don’t do a great job at washing (but they also don’t dissolve, so it’s easy to realize what you did after the fact).
They are bad things to use, for your laundry and your own health, and for the environment. I never used them. I think the smell of most laundry detergent just stinks, and so do dryer sheets.
I use wool dryer balls as well. I found those when I went shopping to replace the nubby rubber dryer balls that went missing,
Then I found them tucked in a corner of a bottom sheet. I like the wool balls best. But still use the nubby ones to massage the soles of my feet.
I have a set, and I use them for towel loads, because yes, the wax on dryer sheets does make the towels less effective at absorption IMO. But, for me at least, they do a far (like order of magnitude) worse job at preventing static cling. Which, well, who cares for towels, but I can’t stand on a shirt. Any advice?
I haven’t noticed that at all. I add fabric softener to my wash and I wonder if that makes any difference.
Why use wool dryer balls if you’re also using fabric softener? The whole point of fabric softener is to soften fabric, remove wrinkles, and eliminate static cling.
As I mentioned, my primary reason is that IMO it speeds up drying versus fabric sheets. If I can get the same result in 20 minutes instead of 40 minutes than it’s saving me money on electricity. Plus I don’t have to buy them over and over since they are reusable, plus I’m not adding waste to the landfill, even if it’s biodegradable waste. YMMV.
Got it. We used to add a dry towel to a load for the same reason. Somewhere along the way I just forgot all about doing that.
Ah, and I don’t use a fabric softener, so, the difference in outcomes makes sense.
Back when I used them I’d tear them in half but not reuse. Just because they still smell good doesn’t mean there’s any softener left on them. And never put them in with a load of towels.
What’s funny is if you read the instructions on the dryer sheets box they suggest to use 1 for teeny loads, 2 for ordinary loads and, 3 for big loads such as a sheets or towels.
Overall I think of them as a product filling a demand they invented by inventing the product then scaring their spoiled suburbanite competitive homemaker audience into first wanting, then needing, them. So it’s doubly funny to me that they try to get you to use them 2 or 3 at a time, and meanwhile people here are tearing them in half or using them twice.
If 1/6th as much product still produces a good-enough result, maybe the product doesn’t actually do much of anything. It’s a giant placebo.
Full disclosure lest I come off all superior-sounding. Which is not my intent.
Late first wife and I both had very utilitarian approaches to laundry. We owned and used no fabric softeners and did all our laundry on the same setting and generally all in big batches of everything mixed together. Sorting by type or size? Hah! Different colors or different temperatures? Hah! Dryer sheets? It is to laugh!
Second soon-to-be-ex-wife was/is a spoiled suburbanite competitive homemaker. She definitely uses every laundry product known to humanity and exactly in accordance with the directions. So 3 dryer sheets per load of towels, etc. Now that I’m doing my own laundry solo again in my new and much improved single life, I do now use fabric softener and dryer sheets.
But not 3 at a time. That’s dumb. So some of her techniques rubbed off on me as actually useful. But far fewer than all.
Heh, so now we’re overlapping with the “snob” thread.
Seriously, I’m mostly agnostic about what goes into loads, and so is my wife, although sheets and towels generally get their own loads so a bajillion socks and smaller objects don’t get wrapped up in the middle.
But I do see a big difference in the static cling between not using anything, using the balls, and using the sheets. And I wish getting detergent and dryer sheets with minimal or no scent wasn’t such a pain.
And don’t get me started (snobbing it up!) about people who buy EXTRA scent beads, talk about creating your damn market.
What is this “static cling” of which you speak, Stranger?
Oh my gosh. I won a jar of scent beads in a basket raffle at work. What am I gonna do with these damn things?
It was a basket of cleaning products, so I can use most of the stuff, but there’s also this gel that sticks under the rim of your toilet, supposed to make the bathroom smell better. Husband just about choked on that aroma. 
I have no doubt your trash can in the garage can choke them down.
Only time I ever used dryer sheets was for stuffing them into a paper towel tube to make a smoke filter in my college dorm room.
3 sheets? I guess it’s a good thing I’m bad about RTFM, as my husband says… 
Come to think of it, I’m frequently Three Sheets.
I bet if either of you were to read your dryer manual carefully you’d find an entry under the bold-printed WARNING section about not operating this highly dangerous machine while intoxicated. 