It’s no secret that American businesses use a lot of paper — in fact, U.S. offices use around 12.1 trillion sheets a year. It’s estimated that the average American office worker even uses an average of 10,000 sheets of office paper per year! That’s a lot of confidential data that might very well, without proper disposal methods like paper shredding, end up in the trash bin — or worse, in the hands of nefarious agents looking to defraud your business.
Today, the need to protect your company’s identity and safeguard its data is more important than ever, even as more companies go paperless. From complying with federal and local regulations to increasing your company’s sustainability efforts, there’s plenty of reasons to consider hiring a local paper shredding service vendor.
Below, we share the most important use-cases for hiring a service for shredded material. From saving on the cost of shredding documents to having a more secure way to get rid of client and customer data, the case is clear: shredding with an outside documents shredder vendor just makes sense.
Americans go through a lot of paper. It has bee estimated that people in the United States use about 80 million tons of paper each year. Globally, paper is the most common waste material. Nearly 95% of all businesses still keep paper records for everything. If you are looking into ways to save all that storage space, you might consider using a paper shredding service or getting a paper shredder for your business. It is more cost effective to do your shredding with an outside vendor than to expect your employees to handle it all in house.
Reasons to Hire a Paper Shredding Service:
It helps you comply with federal, state and local laws. If you manage a medical office, or another office that deals with sensitive information, hiring a shredding service is the way to go. Medical offices and insurance compaies are mandated by law to have strict policies regarding the destruction of their records. For this reason, paper shredding service companies can issue certificates that show the data has been destroyed in a manner consistent with the law. If you deal with any sensitive information, this is the best way to go.< If your company is every questions about its data storage and destruction policies, having certificates showing it was properly shredded can do you a lot of good, even if you are not mandated to shred data.
It is good for the environment.Sure you can shred your paper in house and send it to a recycling plant but will you? Many offices who do their own shredding end up throwing it away. Paper shredding service companies get money for the shredded paper so they are going to recycle it. The Envrionmental Protection Agency (EPA) has said that when paper recycling reduces water pollution by about 35% and air pollution by 74% than making new paper.
It is cost effective.Most companies cannot afford to have one person on staff whose entire job is shredding paper. It it a time consuming and monotonous task. Office shredders require a lot of maintenance and upkeep. Rather than hire someone full time to take care andnbsp;of your paper, usung a paper shredding service will save you time and money. This allows your staff to focus on the jobs they were hired to do. Using a mobile paper shredding servie is cheaper than buying a paprt shredder for your office. Many paper shredding services offer on site shredding services as well.
Your customers will appreciate you more.When your clients or customers find you are using a paper shredding service to destroy your paper records, they will appreciate it. It shows that you care enough anout the safety and security of their personal records that you are destroying them in the most secure way possinle. They will be more inclined to trust uou when they know you handle their information this way.
You cannot have a more secure way to get rid of client and customer data.If you think your cometitirs are above going through your trash, think again. Doing this very thing has cost businesses in the United States millions of dollars. No company that maintains customer, client and patient records on paper is immune from this. Outside companies can provide secure shredding services that protect you and your clients or customers. Remember, most identity theft is caused by people finding paper records, not looking online. Data stored online is a lot safer than data stored in folders.
In addition to offering onsite document shredding, many companies also offer storage and scanning services. If you upgrade your computer equipment, you can also have them shred or clean your hard drive so that no one can access the data stored there. You can get all of your data put into a format that is more easily searched and indexed than having paper records all over.
It may seen a bit counterintuitive but using a paper shredding service will save you time, space and money. The paper records you are keeping in your office take up very valuable real estate. By shredding your paper and having it recycled, you can get back the areas of your company that had been used for paper storage.
