Since committing to eliminate all phthalates from its products in November 2015, Repsol has remained steadily on course to achieve this, meanwhile becoming one of the leading companies pushing this transition forward.
Moreover, the company has initiated or taken part in a wide range of projects aimed at the development of more circular and more efficient plastic resins, including chemical recycling projects and the development of polyolefin products incorporating recycled materials. It has also joined the Circular Plastics Alliance, an initiative of the European Commission aimed at boosting the market for recycled plastics in Europe.
Another project is Naturep, in which Repsol aims to go beyond legal requirements to eliminate all additives with migration limits from their polyolefins, in this way both safeguarding health and environment and eliminating barriers to recycling. This includes phthalates.
Repsol has worked since 2009 with customers in the personal care sector to develop a range of phthalate-free PP for hygienic nonwoven fabric applications.
The experience and expertise gained in that sector enabled the company to further extend to extend the use of phthalate-free catalysts across all its processes. Products that are free of substances with specific migration limits are already an indispensable requirement in numerous applications for our customers in the hygiene and food sectors.
Since September, a complete range of phthalate-free PP has been available at all its production centers since last September.
The transition, the company emphasised, has been effected in collaboration with all customers to ensure their processes for whatever application are in no way impacted.