The Risks of In-House Shredding
Most businesses recognize how important it is to destroy confidential documents, but few realize the risks of shredding documents in house. In this blog, we highlight those risks so you can protect your clients and employees.
Fire Hazards
Many organizations don’t understand how using paper shredders can create fire hazards. Paper shredders run on electricity, and like all electrical devices, are subject to overheating and electrical surges. Paper particles and dust produced during shredding are also highly combustible.
Poor Air Quality
Excessive paper dust can also cause health implications, including lung infections and respiratory disease. Even small paper shredders purchased from an office supply company create a large amount of paper dust. Replacing your in-house shredding program with a reliable outsourced shredding service eliminates the release of harmful dust particles in your office.
Employee Safety
Most workplace accidents are preventable. Although paper shredder injuries are uncommon, they can happen. Employees’ loose clothing, long hair, and even jewelry can get caught in shredding blades. Serious lacerations can occur while they’re clearing paper jams. A shredding service helps your employees avoid shredding injuries and your company avoid liability. Your shredding provider brings secure, locked collection containers to your office. Since they don’t use electricity and have no mechanical parts, your employees can quickly and safely dispose of sensitive documents for secure shredding.
Privacy Breaches
Document shredding prevents privacy breaches. Unfortunately, in-house shredding presents several roadblocks that increase your privacy breach exposure:
- Paper shredders are slow
- Paper shredders jam
- Non-shredding tasks take priority
As a result, confidential documents are rarely shredded in a timely manner. And even when they are, your shredded material is tossed in a trash or recycling bin where it can be compromised.
A shredding service offers your company a more thorough privacy breach prevention solution. Locked shredding collection containers allow your employees to dispose of sensitive without removing staples and paperclips. On a scheduled or as-needed basis, background-screened, uniformed professionals empty the containers, and transport the documents to a shredding plant for secure, offsite destruction or shred them onsite with a mobile shredding vehicle.
Non-Compliance
California Civil Code 1798.91, HIPAA, FACTA, and GLBA require destruction of personally identifiable (PII) and protected health information (PHI). If your organization doesn’t provide proof of final disposition, it may be levied non-compliance fines and penalties. A shredding service helps your business comply with privacy regulations. A Certificate of Destruction is issued after each shredding project, so your business has proof destruction.
Using a professional shredding service eliminates these risks while saving your organization time and money.
Pacific Shredding provides shredding services for residents and businesses throughout Fresno, Stockton, Sacramento, Modesto, and Napa and Solano Counties.