There’s an inherent risk in throwing something into the public trash. Once it leaves your hand and your trash can, it is out of your control.
Anyone with the inclination (and maybe a weak sense of smell) can fish through thrown-out garbage bags until they find something valuable. And “something valuable” can be something as small as an address or a birth date. With this information, a scammer may have just the thing to trick you into offering up more sensitive information. Utilizing only a phone number, a new type of phishing scam can trick individuals into providing cell account details or even into payment of money.
If you don’t want information or materials to be retrieved, it may not seem like there are many other options, short of burying them in the backyard. Fortunately, there’s no need to resort to such extreme measures. There are several different destruction services that can guarantee your valuable information will never pass into the wrong hands.
Types of Document Destruction
There are a wide variety of documents that may require secure disposal through shredding. A home office or residence may be concerned with documents that contain addresses, personal account numbers, or other personally identifying information. Small businesses, companies, and corporations might be dealing directly with the medical, credit, or educational records of their customers. They would also need to consider how to safely dispose of employee records, such as healthcare plan details and payroll information.
The most common method for document disposal is shredding, but sensitive papers can also be disintegrated or incinerated by specialty services.
Types of Product Destruction
An impressive amount of information is kept on electronic media, especially within businesses. Data might very well be kept updated in whatever system exists for its organization, but what happens to the floppy discs that still hold account numbers, or the hard drives that have worn out but still contain personal information? In these cases, product destruction can ensure that these storage devices are safely broken down into tiny pieces, which can then be responsibly recycled.
Some of the most common types of products that require destruction are CDs, DVDs, cassette tapes, hard drives, and magnetic media storage devices. There are still more specialized forms of product destruction, which can handle the shredding or wreckage of clothing, promotional items, old ID cards, outdated or discontinued merchandise, and food products. Basically, if a piece of company property should not be made available to the public for legal or practical reasons, product shredding will make certain it is safely removed from circulation and prevent any attempts at recovery.
Why Bother with Destruction?
The first and arguably biggest benefit to any kind of destruction service is ease of mind. A hard drive or file folder that has been shredded into bits is impossible to recover. This guarantees that whatever information was contained has been safely and permanently destroyed.
Document and product destruction companies often work closely with privacy experts to certify that their process follows all existing laws and industry regulations. Secure Shredding & Recycling, for example, holds an AAA Certification from the National Association of Information Destruction (NAID). This attention to detail can pay off for the client, as information disposal through a trusted, regulated source reduces the risk of fines for improper disposal.
The last benefit is more tangible in nature. By disposing of old documents and electronic media that have been piling up, the office space they occupied can be reclaimed and repurposed for more active use.
One-Time or Regularly Scheduled, Whenever You Need
If you’re looking to perform an annual cleanse of your records or clean up a back room, a one-time shredding appointment could be perfect for your needs. All you need to do is set aside the documents you’d like to dispose of, and the shredding team will do the rest. If your company requires a constant way to dispose of documents that may contain personal information, shredding can be regularly scheduled to keep trash bins clear and legal liability at a minimum.
For safe, certified disposal of papers or electronic media, call (225) 751-8535 or get in touch online.