Document Destruction Best Practices: A Comprehensive Guide to Paper Shredding

For modern businesses today, one of the most important security measures a company can take is ensuring secure document destruction.

Every organization holds confidential information on clients and operations alike. And without a proper document shredding policy, you face the risk of compromised company files, employee records and customer information.

To make sure your confidential information stays confidential, you need to create a company-wide shredding policy. Think of this guide to shredding as your one-stop-shop to determine which document destruction best practices you need to apply to your business as you cultivate your document security plan:

1. Shred Everything and Shred Often

Of all the best practices to consider when it comes to document destruction, this is the most crucial. A “shred-all” policy helps you avoid the risk of poor judgment on what needs to be shredded and stop private papers from piling up around the office.

Ways to implement a “shred-everything” policy:

• Train your entire staff in secure document destruction procedures and best practices.
• Conduct regular information security assessments to evaluate potential risks and vulnerabilities around the office.
• Update your document security plan on an as-needed basis.

Implementing this policy is a company-wide commitment to shredding everything on a regular basis to battle human error and structure your organization.

2. Shred Before You Recycle

You might think recycling improves your environmental record and that tossing papers into the recycling bin is just your organization’s way of doing its part. While partly true, if you aren’t recycling in a security-conscious manner, it can create a world of trouble for your business.

If you aim to be eco-friendly while following document destruction best practices, it’s time to consider outsourcing your shredding needs to a reliable document shredding professional that values security and sustainable process.

Partnering with a document destruction company that includes recycling in their services will stop you from worrying about what might happen to your private papers once they are recycled.

3. Shred with A Professional

With the implementation of all these principles, you’ll be well on your way towards the ultimate goal of total security for your business, customer, and employee information. While you may be tempted to cut costs and pursue these measures in-house, here are a few key points to keep in mind:

• Outsourcing document destruction to a professional shredding company is an excellent way to ensure your employees are free to concentrate on what’s important, such as your business and helping customers.
• No matter how much training your staff has, there’s no account for human error. Most companies don’t have the expertise surrounding information security that’s needed to ensure documents are properly destroyed.

EcoShredding ensures that all documents remain secure and protected in on-site security containers designed to store documents until the EcoShredding experts arrive. From there, your confidential documents are moved to our state-of-the-art mobile shredding truck for destruction.

In a range of service packages from one-time to daily purges, we shred your documents on-site using an advanced technique to eliminate the risk of paper reassembly. Once your documents have been securely shredded, we then recycle the material to help keep the environment free of waste.

Choosing to partner with a document destruction professional will help you achieve a dramatic security increase for your organization’s confidential information. For more about document destruction best practices, please call us at (770) 490-5607 or contact us online today!