Home vs. Commercial Shredders

Most business and people who handle confidential information know how important it is to keep that information safe. Part of keeping that information secure is shredding documents when they are no longer needed. What many do not know is that not all shredders are the same. Some do a much more complete job than others. Many workplaces and home offices use a simple home shredder to get the job done. However, these shredders are probably not meeting the requirements for document destruction. Using shredding services is a much better way to make sure that the documents are completely destroyed. Here is a list of the differences between home and commercial shredders.

Cross-Cutting

There are several standards that a company or a home business must meet when it comes to document shredding. One of the most important is the concept of cross-cutting. Your individual shredder probably cuts your documents down into long strips. Depending on the machine, those strips could be varying widths. With on-site document shredding provided by professionals, the commercial shredder uses a cross-cutting technique. This means that the paper is sliced into strips first, just like a home shredder. However, it is then sliced into tinier pieces by cutting across those strips. This means shredding services provide that extra layer of protection against a data breach.

Shred Sizes

The whole point of having privacy laws is that confidential information must always be kept secure. That means that when you are finished with a document, it must be destroyed in a way that the data can never be discovered or copied. There have been cases of shredded documents being taped back together. On-site document shredding using a commercial shredder will break down those documents into the smallest possible components. This makes it impossible for those documents to be reconstructed and the data to be accessed.

Shredding Services Cost

On-site document shredding involves much larger shredders along with manpower to run those shredders. It is an ongoing cost, as opposed to the one-time cost of a small at-home shredder. That said, hiring shredding services can potentially save you money. Having an individual shredder means that someone must feed that shredder on a regular basis. That means there are manpower and time being spent on this task. As we have mentioned, there is also the strong possibility that these shredding techniques are not getting the job done in compliance with privacy laws, so you would be leaving yourself open to fines and penalties. With on-site shredding, you take away those fears. You also have less work for you and your staff. These factors must be considered when deciding whether to use a professional service.

Convenience

It may seem convenient to have a personal shredder in your office. For some staff, they might just have to roll their chair over to the unit to use it. However, on-site shredding with a commercial shredder can be even more convenient. It simply involves depositing documents into a locked receptacle in the building. Also, there is convenience from not having to worry about privacy laws that seem to change all too often. Companies that provide document shredding keep themselves abreast of all the applicable laws and regulations so that you don’t have to.