It is an honour for us to say that Vital putty has received a special mention at the 2017 Innovation Gallery Awards, in the windscreen, auto bodywork, and paint category.
The Motortec Automechanika panel of judges wanted to value its significant contribution towards minimizing the impact that these products have on the technician's health by taking styrene out of its formula.
The award ceremony took place on 15 March, in the auditorium of hall 7; Jaume Juher, Roberlo's CEO, collected the award.
Without a doubt this is excellent news for the automotive repair sector and we believe that this will motivate companies across the world to commit to less harmful products. Safe work conditions should be everyone's priority, and we are proud that our product is leading this change.
We should remember that styrene is a reactive diluent for products hardened with peroxides. This diluent acts as such during application but does not evaporate during drying. That's why it is a substance that can be harmful to people's health.
Up till now no one had managed to develop high quality putties for auto body repair with an alternative to styrene. Here is the Vital innovation: it provides the same characteristics as other putties, and, in addition, it is less damaging to health.
While we do work in a sector that involves direct contact with chemical products, our duty is to reduce their impact on people's health. Just like what happened with low VOC products (Volatile Organic Compounds), it is likely that regulations in many countries will help boost the use of less harmful products, and we must not wait for a law to force us to do so.
We believe that all regulations that promote safe practices are welcome, and our R&D&I team will continue to work hard to provide more efficient solutions on this matter.
New awareness campaign
We have taken advantage of the opportunity that being awarded with a special mention for innovation at Motortec AM 2017 has given us, and have launched an information campaign for people that use putties for auto bodywork.
This campaign shows images of a painter or a panel beater outside of work. With the phrase, "I am a painter, and also a father, a husband, a friend...that is why I take care of my health," we are trying to make all technicians aware of the importance of working with products that are less harmful for their health so that their job does not affect their personal life.
To send this message out there will be a series of different advertisements via media outlets. People can already ask for an information catalogue that has pictographs and indications of danger that conventional putties have (for examples, harmful if inhaled, cause organ damage, foetal harm, etc.) compared with Vital, which only has two warnings indications for skin and eye irritation.