Learn about the sustainable and innovative packaging solutions the company is developing
Atlantic Packaging president Wes Carter.
Wes Carter’s office wall in a Summerville industrial park is adorned with a print of a breaking wave on Wrightsville Beach near his hometown of Wilmington, North Carolina. That’s where his father, Rusty, grew his family’s paper supply business into a continental player in the packaging industry in the 1970s and where Wes honed his surfing and saltwater fishing skills and developed a passion for the outdoors. “Salt water was the backdrop of my youth,” he says. “And I saw firsthand the impact of plastic on the environment I love.”
Today, Carter heads the largest privately held packaging company in North America—Atlantic Packaging, where he oversees 34 facilities and 2,000 employees from Michigan to the Dominican Republic. An avid surfer who calls Charleston home, he is on a crusade to rid the world’s oceans, lakes, and rivers of a relentless threat: plastic. The packaging industry, he says, created the plastic problem over time, and they are the ones who can fix it. “The paradigm has to shift,” he says.
Though Carter earned a journalism degree from the University of North Carolina, he decided to go into the family business in 2002. He was placed in charge of the company’s Summerville plant in 2009, which he grew from a 70,000-square-foot distribution facility to a 350,000-square-foot distribution and manufacturing center. When Carter became president in 2015, he chose to stay in Charleston rather than move back to Wilmington, where the company is based.
(Left) Sustainable surfboard packaging developed with A New Earth Project;(right) “Fishbone C-Clip“ recyclable beverage carriers.
In 2021, Carter had a conversation with pro surfers in Hawaii and was inspired to launch A New Earth Project, which links water advocates with packaging suppliers and their corporate customers to reduce the amount of single-use plastic used in the industry. The project puts its stamp on sustainable packaging with the input of advocates such as US Board Riders Clubs, The Conservation Alliance, and the American Fly Fishing Trade Association. Carter’s goal is to grow A New Earth Project as his company fosters new sustainable products. “I feel a calling to be a catalyst,” says the 45-year-old.
To that end, Atlantic Packaging works with its clients, such as global behemoths Coca-Cola, Procter & Gamble, and Williams Sonoma, to develop sustainable packing materials, increase efficiency by optimizing technology, and drive demand by appealing to environmentally conscious consumers. This year, the company announced a partnership with Coca-Cola to create a closed-loop system to recapture and reuse stretch wrap, which consolidates the company’s pallets of soda for shipping.
The company’s plant in Summerville.
Among other sustainable innovations being developed and distributed by the company are sustainable cold chain coolers that replace environmentally problematic expanded polystyrene foam, Fishbone C-Clip fiber-based beverage carriers that eliminate plastic six-pack rings, and FibreStrap fiber-based zip ties. Atlantic Packaging is one of 29 North American companies (and the only packaging company) to earn an “A” rating for climate change mitigation from international nonprofit the Carbon Disclosure Project. “A company has a soul, and a corporation can have ethics and morality—just like a human,” Carter says.
By the Numbers
- 78: The number of years in business
- 3: Facilities that have earned a zero-waste certification
- 10 million pounds: The amount of stretch plastic wrap that can be recaptured and reused per year with the company’s system
