There’s plenty of blame to go around for soaring cotton prices, which climbed past $2.25 per pound in early March. Consider the flooding in Pakistan. Bad monsoon in India. Lower crop production. China’s growing middle class. Export quotas. Global recession. Fingers can point in many directions.
 
Cotton’s runaway prices are having a significant impact on the textile services industry, forcing many laundry operators, suppliers and customers to absorb some of the costs, thus weakening their bottom lines, and also changing long-standing business practices. To make matters worse, the quality of linen also has dropped, likely the result ...