Businesses and individuals alike occasionally find themselves in need of secure document destruction. Businesses especially need a secure way to dispose of sensitive data, to ensure the safety and confidentiality of their customers’ information. If you don’t already have a professional shredding service, you may wonder if shredding is really the best option or if you should consider another way. Today at Shred Monkey, we’re discussing alternatives to shredding, and why shredding is the best way to securely destroy sensitive data.
Burning
Burning documents may seem like a cost effective, DIY option for document destruction. After all, burning paper documents will definitely destroy them for good. However, it’s not actually that simple to burn a pile of documents. First of all, it may not even be legal in your area to start a large fire. Fires can easily get out of hand and grow into house or wildfires if you aren’t properly trained. Secondly, a fire built of paper alone doesn’t actually burn all that well. The sheets of paper don’t have enough air between them to get the fire going, and single sheets can easily get caught up and blown away before the information is completely destroyed.
Pulping
Another alternative to shredding to consider is pulping. This is a fairy labor-intensive method, but is highly effective when done correctly. Pulping uses bleach to break down the paper and destroy the ink printed on it, rendering the document unreadable. However, bleach can be dangerous to work with so it’s important to employ this method only in a well-ventilated area, wearing gloves, and using special tools to handle the paper. Generally, pulping takes at least 24 hours and if you are destroying a large volume of paper, you may need to complete the job in several batches. It’s definitely not the ideal method for businesses needing regular document destruction.
Censoring
Sometimes, an entire document does not need to be destroyed to protect sensitive information. If there are only a few lines of confidential information on a document, blacking it out with a marker may be enough to ensure privacy. Again, this method wouldn’t be great for high-volume document destruction and would quickly turn into a tedious chore.
Confidentiality is at the core of your business, so don’t mess around with other document destruction methods. Instead, protect yourself and your clients with the shredding services provided by Shred Monkey. We gladly serve medical facilities, law firms, financial institutions, business organizations, as well as residential customers in the Indianapolis area. Contact us today at (317) 916-1800.