It is not only the homeless that do “dumpster diving”. The courts have ruled in many cases that trade secrets are not protected by the Corporate Espionage Act if they are thrown away in the trash. In order to prevent corporate espionage or identity theft, it is important that any records with sensitive documents be shredded and be destroyed properly. Large businesses and corporations are protected by countless laws and powerful legal teams that serve as an intimidating deterrent for criminals. However, small and midsized businesses are at a greater risk for identity theft. Not only is the sensitive information of the business at risk, so is the information of your employees and customers.

Today, retaining confidentiality of any document can be ensured through secure document shredding. In fact, legal statute demands that every organization, no matter how big or small, should regularly destroy documents which are not meant for the public eye. This not only keeps the operations of the business safe, but also protects consumers and the members of the general public safe from identity theft and financial frauds. The best way to ensure the safety of your business is through secure document shredding.

Do we need to shred? The answer is really simple. If you have paper at your business then yes. Since it is impossible to find an office that doesn’t use paper; it is impossible to find an office that doesn’t need to shred. So a better question is how should we shred.

The goal is to provide security for the information stored on the paper but also to get shredding done at a reasonable price. Like with most jobs you want to use economies of scale. If you have a big shredder the job can be done quickly and there are saving of employee costs. The problem is the price of an industrial shredder require a long pay-back period. Then the costs of maintenance and repair need to be added in.

For many equipment requirements the move has been to leasing or renting. An easy way to “rent” a shredder is to use a shredding service. They have industrial shredders built right into trucks that come to the office. The standard mobile shredding truck has a capacity of over 5,000 pounds an hour. For some perspective that is equivalent to 30 full file cabinets of files in an hour.

To get the most out of shredding services you will want to maximize what you need shredded. Set up an annual purge and advertise it to all the departments. Most people are amazed at how much paper the average employee has squirreled away in desks and file cabinets.  In one visit your office will be free of all the old documents choking up desks and closets.

The benefit of an office wide shredding is eliminating the risk of a data breach. Employees will usually do the right thing and shred if you make it easy. If it is difficult than many employees will take the easy way out and just put it in the trash. If you don’t think you need to worry just watch your dumpster for a day. There will be people poking around to find boxes to move or for recyclables. When they run across private information they call the evening news to get their fifteen minutes of fame.