It began with a pilot project that was so successful that the whole of Draka followed suit. Wooden and plywood spools have been replaced with light, weather-resistant plastic spools in the bluest of blues.

"The pilot project consisted of replacing wooden and plywood spools for a specific product. The goal was to find a solution that was easier to handle, weighed less and that could withstand all types of weather", explains Robbert van der Schaaf at Draka Energy & Infrastructure Europe.

They chose Axjo's smart and environmentally optimised solution in plastic, an experiment that gave such fantastic results that Draka decided to implement the system on a wider basis. A blue 600 mm spool has been developed and produced to replace all the smaller wooden and plywood spools at Draka's production facility in the Dutch town of Emmen.

"The Axjo system has shown itself to be extremely effective and it is much appreciated on the market, which is why the next step we took was to immediately replace all types of smaller wooden and plywood spools with plastic ones. Larger plastic drums in the 800 and 1,000 mm size classes were introduced during 2010".

The new spool is blue, just like Draka, which is an effective way to benefit from and enhance Draka's trademark. The spool has also been furnished with printed label plates containing Draka's logo and information about recycling and the handling of returns.