Wes Carter, president of Atlantic Packaging as well as an avid surfer, has been on a mission to move consumer products away from single-use plastic packaging, which has been a huge contributor to ocean pollution.
His company is the largest privately held product packaging company in North America, and it has taken on an ample amount of sustainability and environmental responsibilities.
By creating and developing environmentally friendly packaging solutions to the large consumer brands, Atlantic Packaging has been helping reduce the amount of "bad plastics" in the environment.
However, reducing plastics isn't enough. Sustainable, eco-friendly packaging alternatives are needed as replacements. Through development of fiber-based solutions, Carter has been able to slowly help move the industry away from the unrecyclable single-use plastic bottles and containers clogging landfills and polluting oceans.
"For the most part, the American public has had the wool pulled over their eyes about recycling because most people don't understand what's actually recycled. Most of the plastic you put in your recycling bin does not get recycled. You send it to the recycling center; they take it off the conveyor as it's sorted and sent to the landfill. So it's really, really important that people become more educated about what is actually recycled and what is not." - Wes Carter
As a surfer, Carter saw large amounts of plastic garbage all over the best surfing spots in the world, additionally, as a father, he considered his kids and the world they would grow up in.
This led him to realize that a big bulk of plastic garbage was packaging, and he was part of the supply chain creating the problem. So instead, he’s made it a priority that his company would be a catalyst for helping influence corporations and individuals to transition to a more sustainable future.
