Securely disposing of confidential and sensitive business waste today is not just a ‘nice to have.’ Given the increasing risks of identity theft, as well as the rising volume of regulation – and penalties – that surround data processing it’s vital to have the right infrastructure in place to ensure that your business is mitigating these risks. Working with a professional shredding service can cover all this – and more. These are just some of the benefits of choosing this option:

• Prioritising compliance. The consequences of failing to protect data today can be severe, from reputational damage to the 4% of turnover that the GDPR imposes as a fine. It’s simply not worth taking the risk that data – electronic or physical – is not being properly disposed of. The only way to guarantee high standards when it comes to document destruction is to work with a professional shredding service.

• Transparency and proof of destruction. When you choose a professional shredding service, you’ll receive a certificate of destruction for your records. This will provide complete transparency when it comes to the chain of custody of your data – and a clear audit trail should you ever need to prove that your business has taken the necessary steps to ensure compliance.

• Protecting your business. Whether it’s a duty of care to staff or customers – or to the business itself – this is much easier to fulfil when it comes to physical confidential data when you’re partnered with a professional shredding service. Whether selecting an offsite or an on-site shredding service,  the data in your confidential documents will always be securely destroyed. There are many different ways to ensure that you’re protecting this vital business asset and a professional shredding service is one of the most effective.

• Professional shredding machines can cope with more than paper. That means you can shred anything, from flash drives through to old uniforms and ID badges. The potential for these to be used where they shouldn’t is minimised when they are destroyed via a professional shredding Plus, the machines employed in professional shredding are industrial and can handle metal contaminates such as staples and paperclips – minimising the time you need to spend on documents before they are shredded.

• A much more time-efficient option. Office shredders tend to be slow and time-consuming to use – plus they will rarely achieve the same level of complete destruction as a professional shredding service. Staff can spend hours removing staples, dealing with paper jams and mistakes are easy to make. Outsourcing document destruction to professional shredders leaves your staff free to focus on adding value to core business functions instead.

• Minimising carbon footprint. Find a professional shredder that recycles 99% of their destroyed documents and you’ll be reducing what your business sends to landfill and reducing your environmental impact. Most professional shredders use route planning to ensure that emissions are minimised from pick up onwards, reducing the paper’s overall carbon footprint too.

A professional Shredding Service is not just vital when it comes to meeting compliance standards today – but also when it comes to your own environmental and efficiency goals too.