Introduction to geotextiles Although skins, brushwood, and straw–mud composites have been used to improve the soft ground for many thousands of years, it is not realistic to refer to these as ‘geotextiles’. The important factor that separates them from modern geotextiles is that they cannot be made with specific and consistent properties. When modern polymers were developed in the mid 20th century, it became possible to create textiles with designed forecastable performance and to produce them in large quantities with statistically consistent and repeatable properties.