So you’re aware of your shred responsibilities and are seeking a provider of shred service. Once you’ve worked out how often you might need to shred, you’ll have to work out a way to securely store the documents to be shredded. It might be tempting to just use some file cabinet, or a bag as your collection point, but those come with risks. A safe of some sort would certainly be secure, but it’s not conducive to a smooth workflow.
What you need is something that’s secure yet easy to access for your staff. Something like a secure shred bin! GASP! What is a shred bin you might ask? Why should I bother with such a thing? Those are all excellent questions, and we’ll answer those now.
Shred Bin Advantages
These bins are common enough for document shredding providers, and are usually a standard feature when signing on. This will be due to the reasons we shall list, and also because they are required for compliance purposes. That aside, let’s look at why these are so good.
Unobtrusive and Accessible
The bins are designed to fit into an office environment, therefore they must not take up a large amount of space, and be able to fit in somewhere that people can easily access. In this way, the bins are combining security while not sacrificing work flow. A bulky thing sitting in the middle of the main walkway would be disruptive to say the least. With several different sizes available, having a small office isn’t an issue, whereas a large office has options that fit their requirements as well.
It’s important for your staff to have easy access to the shred bins so compliance can be carried through. If it was hard to reach them, short cuts could be taken that would leave you vulnerable. People might wait until there is a large pile that needs to be binned before going over to do it, which is not good for compliance. By acting as centralized collection points they also eliminate any confusion as to where secure files need to be deposited. Training will be smoother and faster, compliance will be maintained easier.
Secured
So we know these bins are easy to access collection points designed to fit into an office. Great, but how do they keep things safe? If they’re out in the open can’t anybody happen by and take a handful? Absolutely not, the reason being a fun invention we call a “lock”.
The actual lid or door of the bin is lockable so only authorized personnel can access the items inside. A letter slot is the opening by which papers are placed within, thus it is too small for a hand to reach in and take them back out. The only time these bins will be opened is when a uniformed employee of your shredding service provider arrives to carry out shredding for you.
At The End
With those main points you will hopefully now understand what the big deal with shred bins is. Don’t seek an alternative when presented with these, they are designed to fill a specific task and they do it well. Always remember that they are maximizing your security, compliance, and convenience.
It’s a time of year that’s easy to love. Bright lights, cheery songs, and parties with friends naturally help brighten the mood. From finding the perfect gift to our best creative wrapping strategies, there’s a lot of fun to be found.
However, an increase in shopping also means increasing rates of fraud. 2019 already shows a 29% increase in retail fraud compared to 2018, and fraud isn’t limited to online interactions. Purchases of any kind create a massive paper trail of receipts and credit card statements. Even Christmas cards aren’t completely safe – personal addresses, pet names, and handwritten signatures often accompany the warm wishes for the season, and these are highly desirable for identity thieves.
What Does Document Destruction Have to Do with Holidays?
Your control over any personal information in your trash effectively ceases to exist the second you put it out for public trash collection. This means that, in most states, it’s perfectly legal for someone to search through your garbage, provided it’s on public property (such as a street curb for collection).
Cards with the addresses and names of those most dear to you, receipts and delivery statements from all the gifts you ordered – all of these can fall into the hands of someone intent on misusing them. With little more than your name and address, thieves can scam their way into getting the rest of your information.
It’s true that document destruction isn’t naturally associated with the holiday season, but it really should be. It’s an essential step towards making sure that your new year doesn’t begin with charges you didn’t make or, worse, the discovery that your bank account has been cleared out.
The way document destruction works is by guaranteeing that the information on these printed items can’t be recovered. The shredding company will crosscut your documents into tiny pieces (about the size of very fine confetti). Instead of putting those pieces back into the public trash system, the shredding company will securely remove them to a trusted, local recycling center to ensure that all traces of the physical documents – and your personal information – are gone for good.
How to Prepare During the Holidays
While the holidays are going on, and you’re juggling a variety of guests, gift arrangements, and party planning, all you need to focus on is collecting the items you’ll need to have destroyed. This can be as simple as taking a cardboard box from a recent delivery and dropping papers with sensitive information into it.
What do you need to withhold for document destruction? The short answer is anything with personally identifiable information on it. This can include:
- Billing Statements
- Credit Card Receipts
- Order Invoices
- Prescription Documents
- Greeting Cards & Envelopes
Of course, it’s perfectly all right to hold onto things for sentimental reasons. But when you’re ready to throw them out, make sure they go into the pile you’re setting aside for professional document destruction.
Arranging a Post-Holiday Purge
When the new year arrives and the seasonal craziness slows down, it’s time to do something with all those papers you’ve set aside. You’ll want to call a certified, professional shredding company. All you need to do is let them know what you want to shred, and where/when you’d like them to arrive. That’s it!
When your shredding day arrives, all you need to do is direct the shredding technician to your collection of papers. They’ll personally load it into the shredding truck, and you’ll be able to watch as the papers are destroyed right before your eyes, usually in only a few minutes. When the process is complete, the technician will give you a Certificate of Destruction, which is a document verifying that your items were destroyed according to state and federal regulations (this is especially useful for those who work from home or have a home-based business).
The technician will then directly deliver your document shreds to a secure recycling plant for processing, which means you can tackle the new year with complete peace of mind as to the state and security of your discarded information.
Where to Find More Information on Document Destruction
The safety and security of your personal information should never be taken lightly, which is why it’s important to find a trustworthy company to handle your document destruction. Chesapeake Paper Systems is a NAID-certified, locally owned business with a track record of excellent service. We’re proud to provide a variety of services to our community, including one-time purge shredding, residential shredding service, and a hard drive destruction plan.
For more information on our on-site paper shredding service for both businesses and residential customers, call us at (844) 400-2437 or get in touch online.
Running a small business is empowering. For many, it’s also the realization of a personal dream, whether that’s achieving a role as an entrepreneur or entering an industry you’re passionate about.
As with any undertaking of that size, though, there’s a lot of work that has to be put in. Record management is one of those areas that operates largely under the radar, but everything from storing old documents to figuring out how to dispose new ones affects your daily operations, even if you’re still running things from a home office.
If you handle sensitive information of any kind (customer details, employee banking information, order forms, accounting scratch sheets), then know it’s important to protect those details from theft. In 2018, the average cost of a stolen or lost record was $148. That’s an expensive sheet of paper!
Entrepreneur, we’d like to introduce you to your new best friend: one-time shredding. We know it doesn’t look that interesting at first glance, but its got your back in ways you didn’t even know you needed.
Information Stays 100% Secure – Forever
Your customers trust you with some of their most personal information. Your employees trust that their payroll information will stay secure and confidential. However, whenever these details are printed off for internal work, they’ll have to be disposed at some point.
Tossing papers into the dumpster outside leaves them vulnerable to theft and possible reconstruction. When the information of a single credit card can be sold for up to $110 on the dark web, thieves are more than willing to spend a little extra time sifting through trash.
The one-time shredding process is quick, easy, and guarantees that the details on those papers can never be stolen or used by another party. Here’s how it works:
- A tracked, registered shredding truck arrives at the time and location you specify.
- The technician securely loads your documents into the automated shredding machine.
- Each paper is cross-cut into tiny pieces (smaller than generic confetti).
- All particles are securely transported to an access-controlled facility, where it will be directly sent to a trusted recycling plant.
Your documents will be thoroughly destroyed before they ever leave your sight, and speaking of which, you’ll be able to personally oversee the shredding in real time. Each shredding truck is equipped with a video camera, so you’ll be able to get a look inside as the process is taking place.
Not only will the pieces be small enough to prevent reconstruction, but they’ll never be accessible by anyone who hasn’t been certified and cleared.
Keep More of the Money You Earn
As a small business owner, you want to be sure that you’re making the smartest decisions to protect your company, your employees, and your profits. One-time shredding can save you money that would otherwise be wasted trying to perform professional-grade shredding on your own.
For example, a cross-cut shredder that will meet federal privacy regulations can run you a couple thousand dollars – and there’s no guarantee that a paper won’t be missed, or that the pieces will be securely discarded. That’s not even considering the cost of repairs for accidental breakage (we all forget to remove a paperclip at some point) or general maintenance.
We can’t neglect to talk about employee time, either. The time your employees spend at work adds up. How would that time be best spent: working to advance and improve your business, or hunched over a shredder, painstakingly shredding papers two sheets at once?
One-time shredding puts all that time and money right back into your pocket, and it’s perfect for small businesses who don’t need a full-blown, regularly scheduled shredding service.
Compliant with All State and Federal Privacy Laws
There are a myriad of federal and state laws that control how private information should be handled, stored, and disposed. They’re important to know, but realistically, if you’re already busy running the day-to-day operations of your business, how are you supposed to find the time to read (and understand, and implement) all 376 pages of FACTA, HIPAA, and GLBA?
A one-time shredding service has already done that work for you. You’ll want to make sure that the company has the proper compliance accreditation, of course, but if they do, that means they operate in a way that meets the standards for disposal of private information across a wide range of industries.
What’s all this mean for you? Instead of trying to wrap your head around a bunch of legalese, you’ve got experts on the case, removing the risk of liability from your shoulders while simultaneously making sure that every piece of information under your care is treated according to the rules laid out by all active legislation. That’s something you can be proud of.
Instant (and Effortless) Environmental Consideration
You might have caught it briefly mentioned earlier, but it’s worth mentioning again. One-time shredding automatically makes you – and your business – more environmentally friendly. After all the documents have been shredded, they’re transported to a qualified local recycling company and reintroduced to the marketplace as other paper products.
Now, it might not seem like a big deal to recycle a few sheets of paper here and there, but you’d be surprised at how quickly it adds up. Recycling a single ton of paper saves enough energy to power the average American household for six months.
The environmental impact doesn’t stop there, though. At Chesapeake, our destruction trucks run on Ultra Low Sulfur Diesel (ULSD) and B5 Bio-Diesel, reducing hydrocarbon emissions from combustion by 56% compared to regular petroleum-based diesel.
Certification of Destruction
At the end of your one-time shredding, you’ll receive a Certificate of Destruction. Aside from having a cool-sounding name, this document will also provide legal proof that you ensured the documents in your care were properly and securely disposed by the service providers. And it’s not a one-time deal. Even if you shred only once every year, you’ll still get a Certificate of Destruction at the end of each one.
Arranging a one-time shredding appointment is easy; give our office a call at (844) 400-2437 to get started. You can also submit a request for more information online.
From tax records to client information, most modern businesses come in contact with a lot of personal information. The United States has a comprehensive set of federal data protection laws addressing the responsibilities that companies must meet, along with a host of laws specific to each state.
Legal considerations aside, the buildup of documents in an office can present unique challenges. Storage space is finite and purchasing an office shredder is often both expensive and ineffective. If the office currently doesn’t feel the need for shredding, it places itself at a higher likelihood of having confidential information stolen.
All the above issues – and those we’ll discuss below – can be resolved through the services of a shredding company.
No Wasted Money
The trend of Doing-It-Yourself to save money is well-intentioned, but when it comes to office shredding, there are many extraneous factors that are rarely considered. First, the price of a typical office shredder is in the thousands, and it can only operate at the expense of an employee’s time. If it is only equipped to handle one or two sheets at a time, shredding a stack of handouts or old records can take hours. A shredding service, by contrast, is already reasonably priced, and the entire task will take only a few minutes.
No Need for Expensive Security Training
Part of the federal protection laws we addressed earlier is a requirement that the disposal of documents be completed by a staff member with the appropriate level of security training. This can require money and time that may not be readily available. However, all staff members of a shredding service will already hold the required certification, effectively relieving a company of that burden.
No Wading Through Legalese – Guaranteed Compliancy
A shredding service effectively removes the pressure to become fluent in legal documents. Privacy regulations have very specific standards and rules to follow, and even those with the best intentions can miss small details. Shredding companies have already gone through all the trouble of figuring out the maximum size of paper shreds (3/8” wide for general documents, in case you were curious), so you don’t have to worry about it. You can relax knowing that your documents, at any level of confidentiality, have been destroyed in a manner fully compliant with federal regulations.
No Risk of Information Compromise
Papers placed in a trash bag and left out in the dumpster for collection effectively leaves the scope of your control. At any point between being placed outside and deposited at the dump (and even afterwards), your documents are at risk of being stolen, and in many states, there’s not much you can do about it. Document shredding guarantees that they will be 100% irretrievable, effectively removing the risk of information being stolen or compromised.
No Chance of Injury from Office Shredders
From fire hazards to personal injury, especially to fingers trying to ease a paper jam, office shredders introduce an unnecessary element of risk to the office. Outsourcing your shredding means zero chance that an employee will injure themselves while trying to unclog the office shredder.
No Lawsuits for Improper Disposal
Personal information, for many people, is priceless. When it’s improperly handled or lost, many high-profile companies have found themselves on the receiving end of a class lawsuit, which can cost thousands of dollars and an even steeper expense in terms of brand reputation. A shredding service acts as a sort of legally certified buffer, assuring that disposal occurs safely and securely. You’ll even be provided with a Certification of Destruction upon completion of the process, allowing you to verify that the documents were properly disposed.
No Sleepless Nights Over Identity Theft
Even if you don’t frequently handle clients’ personal information, it only takes one misplaced piece of paper for a thief to get the information they need to begin stealing out of private bank accounts. Don’t spend any more nights staring at the ceiling, wondering if any sheets of paper fell out of the trash bin on the way to the dumpster. An on-site shredding service will allow you to personally watch and verify that every paper, no matter how small, is satisfactorily shredded.
No Unnecessary Waste – Everything’s Recycled
An unexpected perk of shredding is that it’s extremely eco-friendly. From trucks that run on ULSD (Ultra Low Sulfur Diesel) to electronic recyclers, the simple decision to use a shredding service simultaneously becomes the choice to dispose of waste responsibly.
How to Find a Shredding Service
From easing the stress on your pocketbook to reducing the chance of lost or misused data, document shredding can support every aspect of your current business practices. When you begin evaluating different shredding services in your area, make sure to pay attention to their compliancy standards and flexibility for scheduling. You might even be able to visit their facility for a firsthand look at how they operate and what security standards they adhere to.
We’re proud to provide our shredding service to residents all over Baltimore, Washington, and Northern Virginia. For more information on our customized shredding programs, get in touch with us online or call our office at (844) 400-2437.
The hustle and bustle of the workday can be engrossing enough. Imagine trying to worry about secure document disposal at the same time! Most businesses that interact with the personal information of their clients (such as credit card information, health details, or even a home address) find themselves in need of a way to safely dispose of that information.
The need to protect personal data is so great that not one but several laws have been passed detailing how it should be handled. The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) works to secure health information that could be used to identify an individual or their healthcare plan. The Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act (GLBA) focuses instead on the protection of customers’ financial information. These are only a few examples, but the penalties for a business that does not follow their required legal guidelines for safe data handling, can be expensive. You can see why shredding services are so appealing, and why mobile (also called on-site) document shredding is so valuable.
Busy Office? Mobile Shredding Comes to You
Companies who work to shred their own documents may run into a few roadblocks. First (and arguably the most frustrating) is the sheer volume of time needed to feed papers through an office shredder, one by one. Not only does it monopolize the time of at least one employee, but standard office shredders may not even meet the necessary destruction requirements for the type of information being shredded.
Let’s suppose that time and money are of no consequence to a company. Where should all those sensitive documents be stored until they can be shred? Cardboard boxes in the supply room can’t offer nearly enough protection for personal information of that quantity. What would happen if an employee were to forget where to put them, or if that individual accidentally dropped a paper in the regular trash, where anyone could find it?
Mobile shredding offers a solution to all the above concerns.
What is Mobile Document Shredding?
Mobile shredding is what it sounds like. A shredding service capable of moving from place to place, in the form of a specially outfitted truck. The truck technicians, all certified in the handling of sensitive information, will then either collect bins of documents to be shredded or, as is more common in one-time shredding, will accept documents on location. These trucks can shred up to 4,500 pounds of paper per hour, so one is usually more than enough to handle whatever volume of documents await.
The best part about a mobile shredding service is that it can be tailored to meet the needs of your company. It’s typically more economical, guarantees destruction in a way that complies with federal law, and can even be set up to be part of a regular office routine. Whether it’s a one-time shredding session or the presence of locked collection bins for scheduled pickup, there’s an option for every business.
One of Many Types of Destruction Services
While this mobile service may certainly be the best option for a spontaneous deep-clean of the office or a community-wide shredding event, there are other options for shredding. Scheduled visits enable routine disposal of sensitive documents. The papers will still be destroyed on-site before being taken away to a secure facility for recycling.
Of course, papers aren’t the only thing that can hold customer data. Hard drives, SD cards, cell phones, CDs, backup tapes, and even computer memory boards are all frequently used to store or transmit customer information. When the information no longer needs to be stored or when the hardware breaks down, it is absolutely vital that these devices be completely destroyed. One of the worst mistakes a business can make is the assumption that a simple deletion will erase a customer’s information. To ensure no chance of data recovery, these devices should be physically destroyed beyond repair. One way to accomplish this is through hard drive destruction, another variation on shredding.
Does Mobile Document Shredding Sound Right for You?
Shredding provides a wealth of benefits to companies, such as the knowledge that documents will be safely and securely removed. This service is often more cost-effective than trying to shred in-house. It also reduces the risk for employees, who may not be trained in or have time to worry about proper data disposal.
If you’re ready to get shredding, or if you want more information on our services, give us a call today at 844-400-2437. You can also get in touch with us online!