A Finglas based data capture company is helping publishers achieve their recycling targets through the processing of full copy newspaper and magazine returns. Newsprint recycling rates have more than doubled in Ireland since 2002, placing Ireland among the top countries in the world. In business since 1993, and operating from its purpose built premises at M50 Finglas, Datascan processes unsold newspaper, magazine and book returns on behalf of Independent News and Media Plc, The Irish Times Ltd and Newspread Ltd, a major distributor of Print Media in Ireland.
With a staff of 50 full time employees and using state of the art technology Datascan processes almost 1.8 million data records per week. Each of these data records represents an unsold newspaper, book or magazine, these are collected from retail outlets throughout Ireland and delivered to Datascan directly for processing. Using their bespoke data capture software, Datascan’s operatives scan the publication barcode on each paper or book. The information captured from this scan gives credit back to retailer for the unsold item and provides the publisher with data for their Audit Bureau of Circulations Certificate of guaranteed readership.
Once processed, all of the books, magazines and newspapers are sent for recycling or collected for shipment back to the original publishers. In all, Datascan processes and recycles over 300 tonnes of printed material per week! In the past shops would only have returned the newspaper barcode and most of the paper would have gone to a landfill. This full copy processing operation has been so effective for Datascan’s clients that they are well ahead of their recycling targets with an estimated recycling rate of 75%, placing Ireland amongst the top recycling countries in Europe in this regard.
Datascan’s newest offering is a “Green” Office document management system. With more than 35 years experience in the security industry and a former President of the Irish Security Industry Association, Padraic Cafferty (pictured), Managing Director of Datascan stated “Datascan aims to offer small to medium size businesses the opportunity to reduce the excess of paper in the workplace through safe and easy imaging and indexing of important documentation.” Datascan’s document management system gives all of the advantages of a high-end Scanning system without the heavy capital investment necessary with some proprietary systems.
All of Datascan’s ISO 9001 approved processes can be viewed online on their website at www.datascan.ie