CHICAGO - Formosa Group, the diversified petrochemical and plastics giant based in Taipei, Taiwan, will join the high-barrier oriented film market for industrial packaging in a big way by June. Inteplast Corp., Formosa's Livingston, N.J.-based subsidiary, introduced a new family of biaxially oriented, cross-laminated films for industrial packaging at the Flex-Pak flexible packaging conference in Chicago.
John Latham, senior marketing manager for Inteplast, said the films, called IntePlus, are coextruded blends of several polyolefin resins, including low, linear low and high density polyethylene, and polypropylene.
Latham said the films can be coextruded on traditional equipment, metalized, and printed in as many as six colors.
The films will be produced in about two months at Inteplast's facility in Lolita, Texas.
The facility is part of a nine-plant complex at Lolita, due for full production in 1996, which the company claims will have capacity for about 1.5 billion pounds of production per year of various Inteplast and Formosa products, including T-shirt bags, produce bags, trash can liners, BOPP, cast PP, corrugated sheet, and other products.
The capacity at the 560,000-square-foot plant that will produce the IntePlus films will be 150 million pounds per year, Latham said. The company will make IntePlus in thicknesses of one-half to 2 mils and seamless widths to 196 inches, or 390-inch, single-seam varieties.
Inteplast will offer IntePlus in shipping sacks, and as roll stock. Latham said the sacks are useful for food applications, because of their high-barrier qualities, and for detergents, agricultural and construction applications.