Save Money with Shredding

How a shredding service saves your business time & money

With the economy being tight, businesses of all sizes are looking to optimise their spendings and look for ways to reduce costs. Shredding is often seen as a duty that must be completed - but not something you want to spend money to have done. Unfortunately, this is almost always a false economy and ends up costing the business more than outsourcing document shredding.

GDPR compliance is a major factor

The potential costs to your business if you don't properly dispose of confidential material are immense, particularly with GDPR regulations and the Data Protection Act 2018, both of which came into force in May 2018. The Information Commissioner's Office (ICO) can and have issued fines for non-compliance with GDPR regulations and the Data Protection Act 2018.

Can you afford shredding equipment?

You know it is crucial to destroy documents regularly, but what about the equipment needed to for secure destruction?

Documents need to be shredded extremely thoroughly and the resulting paper mixed with paper from other sources to prevent reconstruction of the documents. This is something that can't generally be safely completed with a personal or office shredder.

The cost of simply purchasing and maintaining a good quality shredder for office use can be quite high. Moving up to the next level of document shredding and destruction would mean you'd need a large scale commercial shredding machine and considerable floor space, along with specialists to operate it. Most businesses simply don't have enough of a demand for shredding to justify these kinds of costs.

A shredding company should only charge you for the amount you shred, helping make it a cost effective solution when compared to purchasing, housing and operating your own equipment - and disposing of the shredded paper itself. Reputable shredding companies will also provide you with a certificate of destruction, so you have a record of your document destruction activities - which is particularly important in view of GDPR.

What about office space?

If you're considering shredding your documents in-house, then you'll need to decide where the actual shredding will take place. Do you have space available where all the preparation and shredding could be completed? If you don't have a segregated space for your shredding, keep in mind that shredding is a messy and loud process.

If you don't currently have available office space, do you intend to lease additional space? Even if it is a basement, it will still cost money. If it is in a separate part of the building or even in another building, this raises transportation and security issues as well as additional expense.

Should an office junior do the shredding?

If you're going to do your shredding in-house, consider who will be responsible for the actual shredding process. Do you want to assign a junior member of staff to this essential task, giving them access to confidential information that's outside of their current responsibilities? You could assign a senior member of staff to the task, but their talents and skills are usually better used within your business.

A professional shredding company will save on staff time (and time is, indeed, money). Nobody at your business needs to spend hours removing staples, clips and binders before properly shredding documents.

What about other costs?

There are other costs involved in the proper disposal of the shredded paper which many businesses don't even consider.

It takes a single person five hours to shred 25 kilos of paper – more than half of their working day. This doesn't include preparation (removal of clips, staples, etc) of the documents for shredding in an office shredder.

Don't forget your power bills. Any shredder that is powerful enough to be suitable for business use will also use significant amounts of electricity. In an era of ever-rising power costs, third-party, on-demand or scheduled shredding will help keep those costs down, too.

Your shredding schedule

With regularly scheduled shredding services, your employees simply put documents to be destroyed into a lockable console, and they're collected on a regular basis. You know your documents will be securely and quickly shredded on a schedule you can plan on.

For on-demand shredding, paper can be collected into shredding bags, bin bags or simply left in archive boxes which can be taken away for shredding.

You don't need to remove staples, clips and other items before shredding.

A professional, security conscious and efficient company to take away your business documents for destruction makes sound economic sense. Make use of their collection, destruction and disposal services you save office space, employee time as well as capital outlay – and save your business money.

How may we help with your shredding needs?

Whether you need to establish a regular, scheduled collection of your papers to be shred or you simply need to shred on an ad-hoc basis, we're here to help. Simply complete the form on this page or ring us on 0161 888 3398 and let us help with your shredding needs.