Here’s What You Need To Know Before Hiring A Document Shredding Company

Document shredding is considered to be a vast topic, as it covers everything from document recycling to regulatory compliance to privacy protection. Subsequently, considering the vast coverage of document shredding, there can be a number of questions and confusion regarding the services provided by a document shredding company. This blog will definitely be very helpful in getting a broad understanding of the topic, as it sheds light on all the frequently asked questions related to a document shredding company. 

Are there any laws and regulations abiding the necessity of shredding of business documents?

Yes, there are various federal regulations, like SOX, GLB, HIPAA, and FACTA, that require complete disposition of information related to clients, past financial transactions, protected health, personal information of employees, etc., in a secure manner. There is a heavy imposition of fines and penalties on all organizations for non-compliance with these regulations.   

Does a document shredding company perform the recycling of such shredded documents?

Once after the completion of the process of destruction of documents, there are a few document shredders who accumulate the shredded pieces and turn them into paper pulp. Subsequently, the paper pulp undergoes various recycling processes to produce marketable consumer products that can be used for a variety of purposes. However, not every document destruction company owns the various recycling tools, and they transfer the shredded pieces to other recycling companies. Lastly, it’s recommended to select a document shredding company with its own recycling tools, as this will keep your information secure and costs low. 

What is the NAID AAA certification?

NAID stands for National Association of Information Destruction and NAID AAA certification verifies the credentials of a document shredding company and ensures that the company meets the highest industry standards. These standards are designed to measure a particular shredding company’s competence regarding the on-site destruction of confidential records. There are multiple audits that are conducted to ensure that a particular company fulfills the standards that are required to achieve NAID AAA certification. These audits cover all the domains or aspects of document shredding services, including:

●       Insurance requirements 

●       Validation of the existing shredding processes

●       Written security procedures and policies

●       All the screening processes of employees

Obtaining the services of a document shredding company, who has obtained a NAID AAA certification, eliminates any such exposure of risk to the privacy, confidentiality, and integrity of your documents, record, and information. 

What is the minimum cost charged by a document shredding company for its services?

There was a recent survey conducted for the purpose of comparing different prices charged by a few renowned document shredding companies. Subsequently, the report concluded that the average shredding price of a security bin for on-site shredding is nearly between $85 and $150. At the same time, the cost surfaces between $100 and 125$ per bin when it comes to off-site shredding of documents. 

The overall cost for shredding services might seem to be a heavy expenditure, but it is much less as compared to owning a shredding machine. When you hire a renowned document shredding company, you just don’t pay for shredding, but a safe, secure, and specialized service. These companies ensure that the confidentiality and integrity of these documents are not compromised by using all the recent and robust security measures. Few of the security measures include shredder trucks, installation of security cameras all around the precinct, locked containers, and a highly-effective an industrial paper shredder that has the ability to shred high volume of records, information, and documents into minute particles. 

What are those factors that are responsible for determining the cost charged by a document shredding company?

There are different factors and aspects that are responsible for determining the minimum charges for paper shredding. For instance, the factor of the distance between your factory and the document shredding company, volume of documents that are required to be shredded, do you have the transport facility to transfer the documents and collect them from the shredding company, etc. Further, the overall cost may also vary on the kind of shredding company you choose. It is generally observed that all companies quote distinct prices for document shredding services, so it’s recommended for you to obtain multiple quotes, and compare all the prices to pick the affordable one. 

You can reduce the overall cost of document shredding services by exploring different document shredding companies near your company, as there is a high probability that these companies will collect your confidential documents from your location at free of cost. And if they don’t provide free transportation, you can deliver the documents using your own vehicle and save money on transportation costs. 

Nowadays, these document shredding companies are also beginning to offer services of hard drive destruction like SSDs, flash memory, floppy disks, or any other defective and old hard drives. Therefore, you can also get your hard drives destroyed by hiring services of these document shredding companies.