Starting an in-house shredding program seems easy enough—just a matter of running to the office supply store and purchasing some paper shredding machines. But this represents a mere fraction of the expenses and risks of in-house shredding. In this blog, we uncover the hidden costs of shredding your documents in-house.
Equipment Maintenance
Buying an office shredder isn’t a one-time cost. Paper shredders are cheap and can’t withstand heavy use. As a result, maintenance issues are common: shredders jam, blades become dull, and dust and debris clog the machine. Non-paper items like staples and paperclips can cause permanent damage. As a result, shredder repair and replacement costs skyrocket beyond the initial purchase price.
Labor
In-house shredding is a huge time commitment. Consider the steps it takes to destroy a file:
- Remove paperclips, staples, sticky notes, cardstock and file folder or binder
- Separate the document into easily-shredded portions
- Feed the paper into the shredder
- Empty the shredding receptacle
- Clean up spilled bits of shredded material
- Toss the bag of shredded paper in the dumpster
With the resulting labor costs and lost productivity, your company loses money each time you shred documents.
Electricity
In-house shredding increases your energy consumption costs. A professional shredding service eliminates electricity-consuming office shredders. Secure collection containers replace your paper shredding machines. Therefore, reducing your kilowatt-per-hour rate and the cost of your electricity bill.
Compliance
Several federal regulations impose stiff penalties against companies that fail to protect consumer information:
- Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA)
- Fair and Accurate Credit Transaction Act (FACTA)
- Sarbanes-Oxley Act (SOX)
- Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA)
- Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act (GLBA)
In-house shredding doesn’t match the security and disposal verification standards of outsourced document destruction. Once your documents have been professionally shredded, you receive a Certificate of Destruction verifying your compliance with federal privacy laws.
Data Breach Exposure
Employee error and negligence are prime causes of corporate data breaches. In-house shredding is prone to mistakes that can lead to the compromise of confidential information. Especially if employees forget to shred sensitive documents or accidentally toss confidential paperwork in a trash or recycling bin. Firstly, a professional shredding service eliminates in-house shredding errors. Secondly it streamlines document disposal.
Now you know the true costs of in-house shredding. Additionally, how a secure shredding service can replace it with an affordable and secure document destruction solution.
Richards & Richards offers NAID AAA Certified document shredding and media destruction services for businesses throughout Nashville. For more information about our shredding services, please call us at 615-242-9600 or complete the form on this page.