Atlantis rising

Atlantis Plastics Inc. has expanded its capacity for converted flexible packaging films with the installation of a new blown film line at its Cartersville, Ga., plant. Atlantis began running the line supplied by Windmoeller & Hoelscher Corp. in November. It is housed in a new, 4,300-square-foot addition Atlantis constructed this summer onto the 60,000-square-foot main building. Atlantis director of marketing Brad Bastion said in a telephone interview that the plant is configured for further expansion over the next several years. The W&H system is the sixth film line at the Cartersville site. It can make five-layer film in rolls as big as 45 inches in diameter. It includes a 14-inch die and is rated at about 6 million pounds per year. Bastion said it mainly will process polyethylene but it can run polypropylene as well as barrier layers. Growing market share in converted flexible films is a key strategy for Atlantis' Custom Films Division, according to John Iacobucci, vice president and general manager of the division. Bastion said the new line delivers sheet flatness, roll conformation, five-layer flexibility and large roll diameters desired by converters. The Varex-brand line has a Maxicone multilayer die and an Optifil P2 system for thermal gauge control. Atlantis also makes linear stretch films and converts films for a wide range of institutional, food-service and other markets. Atlanta-based Atlantis also has custom injection molding and profile extrusion businesses.