We all create a trail of paper behind us everyday. Whether at home or in a workplace environment there is constantly paper waste created, whether that comes from the post and envelopes, bills, statements and junk mail at home, or notes, printed paper documents, employee files, wage slips, invoices, financial statements and marketing plans in an office environment. There are a few reasons why it is important that you shred your documents, at home and at work, and an even bigger incentive to ensure your paper waste is recycled, which can be guaranteed through a paper shredding service in your local area that comes to your place of work to securely collect paper waste, destroy it within 24-hours and send it for recycling.
Whether you decide to go down the route of hiring an external shredding company to come and pick up your paper waste, or you purchase shredding machines for your workplace, training your staff to use them correctly and change the environmental awareness culture of your company that way, there are the same benefits awaiting you.
Be Compliant with Data Protection Law
We all have a legal right to the protection of our personal information. As a business owner you have to carefully and securely dispose of any information that you hold that is no longer pertinent to your business interests. This information can relate to your customers, suppliers or ex-employees. Data protection laws ensure that you have to get rid of this paper waste in a secure and timely manner, with the shredding of paper, and other documentation that contains sensitive information, the best solution for this problem.
Boost Your Green Credentials
The push for a paperless working society has made great strides in recent years but there is still some way to go to make it a reality. The amount of trees that are cut down to facilitate the use of paper that is thrown away almost immediately after use is a scary thought. Some shredding companies will plant a tree for a certain number of bags of shredded paper they collect from you. Changing the culture of your company will help to drastically reduce the carbon footprint of your company, only using paper as a last resort, creating digital copies of documents, rather than printing reams of copies of one document for office use and recycling all paper waste.
Prevent Identify Theft
For businesses and for personal disposal of paper waste one of the major benefits is that it limits the potential for the information at hand to be used for identity theft. At home this can take place if you throw out your bills, post, anything with your name and address on, without shredding first. In the workplace there is so much more information that can be used in this way, hence the requirements linked to the Data Protection Act.
As you can see there are a few reasons why you should be shredding your documents, whether at home regarding personal information or in the workplace with information relating to your staff members, suppliers and clients.
Content Written By Belonda Shawyer