Companies that are in search of ways to become “greener” and provide clients with more security of confidential data should look to onsite shredding services. Every year more than nine hundred million trees are cut down to produce raw materials for paper and pulp mills. In addition, each year in the United States, about one billion trees worth of paper are thrown away. Companies that desire to become more eco-friendly are utilizing shredding machines as a means of recycling the millions of pages of paper that are thrown away in their offices each year. While this is a good effort to recycle paper, it is not as efficient or as beneficial as utilizing an onsite or mobile shredding service. Identity theft, fraud and other financial crimes have motivated consumers and offices to be more vigilant in destroying documents that contain personal information.
Onsite shredding services have become more popular as offices are held to strict policies to protect consumer information. Mobile onsite commercial shredding companies transport large commercial shredders incased in a truck (much like a garbage truck) to the client’s business and shred the documents at the company’s place of business to ensure personal information is destroyed before it leaves the premises. In addition to being much more secure than the “rip and toss” method of disposing of documents, the benefits of using a commercial onsite shredding service include:
1. Confidential documents are placed in locked storage bins until the shredding service arrives adding an additional level of security. Most onsite shredding companies provide a certificate of destruction that meets or exceeds standards for document destruction in accordance with requirements under HIPAA, Graham Leach Bliley and The Patriot Act.
2. More paper is shredded and recycled when using a commercial shredding service because employees are more likely to place all paper in a bin “to be shredded” rather than shredding individual sheets in small office shredders.
3. They are most cost-effective, especially for large shredding jobs, than paying employees to hand-feed individual sheets of paper into small shredding machines. Time and money are saved over using individual shredding machines on an annual basis.
4. Onsite or mobile shredding services are more eco-friendly than disposing of paper waste into trash cans for disposal. For example, my office shreds everything including opened envelopes from the daily mail to discarded sticky notes that may contain personal information jotted down quickly during a telephone call (or smiley faces drawn during a call). Recycling increases in offices that use mobile shredding services.
5. For offices that have very sensitive data to be destroyed, an office employee or management staff can accompany the “shredding bins” to the truck and visually confirm that the documents were shredded.
To find a mobile shredding service in your city, check with your local recycling facility or Chamber of Commerce.
Sources:
Recycling-revolution.com
Headwatersrecycle.com
GilmoreServices.com
