What do professional shredding services offer?
Professional shredding services can provide onsite and off-site document destruction for residential and commercial clients. In addition to document shredding, information security companies can also destroy a variety of plastic and metal materials, including:
- Hard drives
- CDs and DVDs
- ID badges
- Microfiche
- Promotional products
- Uniforms for law enforcement
- License plates
- Textbooks
- Printed Materials and Magazines
In short, a professional shredding service can destroy any information or items that would leave your business or household vulnerable to thieves. Here’s a closer look at how a professional shredding services can improve your information security:
1. Small business shredding – Small businesses may not have the capital to invest in in-house shredding machines and the personnel to operate them. A professional shredding service is an ideal partner for these companies, and ensures small businesses are compliant with information security regulations. This is especially important for any business that handles medical or financial information.
Professional services can haul away anything that needs to be destroyed, or they can handle the shredding onsite. In both cases, the professional provides a secure chain of custody from the moment the documents are received, to the moment they are destroyed. Your shredding partner can also provide certification of destruction, which provides proof that your business is handling its information properly.
Professional document destruction also reduces overhead as employees can focus on other tasks. Retail shredders are useful for destroying a few documents at a time, but they can’t shred anything with staples, they need to be replaced often, and more importantly, they aren’t able to make the information on the pages completely unreadable.
2. Corporate shredding – Professional shredding services can scale their operations up to meet the needs of any company, including large corporations. Large businesses handle high volumes of sensitive information, and for most companies, it isn’t feasible to efficiently secure and destroy that information.
A professional shredding service offers this efficiency, and can handle any volume, either onsite or off-site at a secure facility. They can also schedule regular pickups or onsite shredding, so your company’s information security is regularly maintained.
Professional services can provide secure containers for their business clients, no matter their size or information volume. The containers make it simple for employees to securely dispose of information, and the professional shredder only needs to haul the containers away. There’s minimal disruption and minimal risk, as documents aren’t kept out in the open prior to destruction.
3. Onsite shredding – Onsite shredding combines security and convenience and allows companies to monitor the shredding process to their satisfaction. Workers retrieve all secured documents and hardware and destroy them without ever leaving the company’s premises.
Professional shredding services use commercial-grade equipment during the process, so total destruction is guaranteed. The equipment can be set up where needed, and once everything is destroyed, the remains are baled up and sent to a recycler.
A certificate verifying the destruction process is also given to the company for proof, should it be needed at a later date. If the company requires a witness, professional shredding services can provide live video footage of the shredding process.
4. Residential shredding – More residents than ever are seeking a shredding solution for their information security needs. Documents like phone, insurance or mortgage bills, or bank statements can all expose a household to identity theft. Shredding these documents ensures information doesn’t fall into the wrong hands. If regular shredding services are needed, a professional service can work with their residential clients to develop a convenient document disposal plan.
If there are any questions about what should be destroyed and what should be kept, a professional shredding service can provide answers.
Why a professional shredding service makes sense
Professional shredding is cost-effective and easy, but those aren’t the only benefits. For example:
- Total security – With a professional shredding service, there’s no opportunity for thieves to steal information. Documents go straight to the secure container, they’re hauled off by the shredder’s workers, transported in a secure vehicle and immediately taken to the shredders for destruction. Every step is designed for maximum security.
- No effort needed – All employees or homeowners need to do is put anything to be destroyed in the secure containers. The shredder removes and replaces the containers, and drives away.
- Guaranteed destruction – Most retail shredding machines cut in one direction, leaving the document in strips. They aren’t capable of anything more than paper, either. A professional service must adhere to industry regulations that dictate how small shredded particles must be. Reputable shredding services can exceed this mark, reducing documents to confetti and hardware to a pile of plastic and metal.
Every company and resident must consider its information security, and a professional shredding service can be a valuable part of that plan. With simple, scalable solutions, an professional service can meet any individual or company’s shredding demands.