Preston Aldridge, Vice President, FTA, Inc.
Our industry began in fields out in the open when Man was mostly Nomadic and washers were rivers. With the change to a more stationary lifestyle, the location moved to the yards, porches, kitchens, and laundries of homesteaders. The General Store needed a supply chain thus creating large laundries followed by large mills for larger runs of fabric. As the world became more global, the larger mills moved to faraway places and we returned to smaller ones. Laundries for garments once again were in vogue and only recently have lost favor due to pollution and excess water consumption. Enter laser engraving of fabric, ozone gas treatment for preparation and plasma for finishing. Now water is gone. Enter nonwovens and applicators are gone with the placement of particles in the substrate which perform the roll of chemistry. What an exciting time to live!
