We have long said that it is foolish to buy a shredder and expect employees to assign themselves the extra work of shredding. They will inevitably just save their time and put important in the trash.

The latest organization caught doing this is The Warren County Virtual school in Lebanon, Kentucky. They left all their students names, addresses and social security number in the trash. They were found by a contractor and reported to the news and police.

If you don't make document destruction easy with a shredding service you are just waiting to be the next ones in the news.

We all know to shred our tax information after it is no longer needed. It contains sensitive information that can lead to identity theft if found in your trash. The IRS doesn't seem to understand the threat.

A recent investigation of more than a dozen IRS document disposal facilities found that -- at each location -- old taxpayer records were being tossed out in regular waste containers and dumpsters.

Read the inspectors report.

Walgreens announced "We reached an agreement" in the case of leaving personal information in the trash. The attorney general countered with, "There was never an agreement that was reached."

Walgreens' rival CVS agreed to pay $2.25 million for the same violations of patient privacy in January. The attorney general is now waiting for the federal agencies involved to reach an agreement.

At the very least Walgreens has learned the cost of hoping your employees shred is at least $2.25 million.

It is common to find stories about personal information that a business did not shred. The other thing that doesn't always get shredded is company confidential information. The first step for any corporate espionage is to search the company and employees trash. This never makes the news for obvious reasons.

Today we have a story of a someone throwing confidential company information in the trash before it is shredded. Two scrips for the next 'Twilight' movie have been discovered in St Louis. If you are not familiar with this movie just ask the nearest pre-teen girl. Obviously this is information the producer would not like widely released. Full Story.

There is one fewer shredders in North Carolina. American Security Shredding has acquired Carolina Shredding. Both companies were based in Asheville, North Carolina. The acquisition "nearly doubles" the shredding capacity of American Security Shredding.

Richmond Dermatology and Laser Specialists left patient records in their dumpster instead of shredding them per HIPAA requirements. The part came when a gust of wind sent the documents flying down the street.

The interesting part is the office failed to shred all their paperwork but instead of hiring a shredding service to make sure it didn't happen again they are still doing it in-house.

Here are the pictures of blowing medical files.

Nashville police have tied an identity theft ring to a hotel dumpster. William Frelix would dumpster dive at the hotel for information. New credit cards would be ordered for the stolen identities. Frelix then sold items purchased on the cards for cash. Items ordered included $3,000 in lumber and a new car engine and transmission. [story]

Too many businesses make it too easy to steal information.

Brooke Auto Insurance Company of Gresham Oregon, needs to find a shredding service. Their plan was to just leave their customers' private information in the trash. The problem is someone noticed the boxes of files. He then called the local news and the police.

They may have saved a couple of bucks on shredding but now they have a PR nightmare and possible criminal charges. Not a good decision. Next time do it right and use a document shredding service.