Are you looking for a certified and secure on-site or off-site document shredding service? Are you also looking for a company that can provide hard drive shredder services? What about document scanning and secure document storage solutions?
You know how important it is to protect your data. Whether this data is located on your home or company hard drives or in printed files, there may come a point at which you’ll be concerned with which documents you need to save and what documents can be destroyed.
Since you want to maintain the security and confidentiality of your personal and business information, shredding sensitive documents is essential. Furthermore, when you purchase a new personal computer or update your computer systems at work, you’ll also want to find a hard drive shredder service to destroy your hard drives.
The Cost of Information Theft
Most business information continues to be maintained on paper, and it has been estimated that 95% of businesses will likely continue this practice. The risk of information theft may increase when these papers aren’t disposed of properly.
According to the FBI, the cost of information theft to businesses in the United States is approximately $24 billion a year. Online interactions, such as the exchange of emails and other documents, accounts for less than 10% of identity theft cases, however.
Mandated Shredding
Is your business required to have a comprehensive data-destruction plan in place? Even though common sense does dictate the importance of shredding documents that contain financial as well as other sensitive information, there are state and federal mandates for specific industries.
Doctors and health insurance providers, for example, are legally mandated to shred their records. This is due to the sensitive nature of the medical information contained within these files. As a result, both state and federal laws require comprehensive data-destruction plans be created for any organization that handles medical information.
The Environmental Benefits of Paper Recycling
While protecting sensitive business information is the primary reason for document shredding, it also has an environmental impact. More than 80 million tons of paper are used in the United States on an annual basis. Furthermore, unless it is recycled and re-used, paper is the most common solid waste material found in landfills.
Most United States paper mills, according to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), use recycled paper in their manufacturing process. The EPA reports that approximately 80% of these mills are actually designed to use shredded and other types of recycled paper.
Furthermore, the EPA also reports that when recycled, rather than virgin, paper is made, other types of pollution are decreased. There is, for example, 35% less water pollution and 74% less air pollution as a result of this process.
When your business engages in paper shredding, it can also reduce the risk of a fire breaking out due to a reduction of incendiary materials. Another benefit of reducing the amount of paper files and storage boxes is that you’ll have more office and storage space.
Using secure shredding services can also assist with office productivity. This is because employees are not spending valuable work hours feeding small stacks of paper into standard office shredding machines. When choosing either an on-site and off-site secure shredding service, you can also take care of any hard drive shredder services you need as well.