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Writer's pictureHighlander Security Shredding

How to Choose The Perfect Paper Shredding Company

Updated: Oct 29

When it comes to selecting a professional paper shredding company, you should keep several considerations in mind. From whether you’re shredding for individual or business use to the range of services on offer, this extensive guide offers an insight into the shredding industry and provides you with tips on what you should look out for.

What is a document shredding company?

A document shredding company will help you dispose of documents safely and efficiently.

You’ll find domestic services, which will help you dispose of any confidential waste you have at home. You might choose to use one if you have too much personal paperwork to securely dispose of on your own.

Domestic paper shredding companies usually offer one-off, contract-free shredding services that are ideal if you’re:

  1. moving house

  2. disposing of the paperwork of someone who has died

  3. organising or decluttering your home

  4. running a business from home

  5. working with sensitive documents from home

You’ll also encounter commercial shredding services. These are ideal for corporate environments that deal with a large amount of paperwork that needs to be disposed of safely and confidentially.

What are the benefits of a document shredding company?

Document shredding companies provide a number of services that can benefit you in many ways:

Reduce hazards

Professional paper shredding companies will usually come to your offices every week or fortnight rather than waiting until you have amassed a large amount of paper.

This means that you will not have to leave bags of paper lying around. Considering how easily paper catches fire and also considering health and safety regulations that dictate trip and slip hazards need to be kept to a minimum, this regular collection will help minimise workplace safety risks.

Protect the data of your company

A lot of business paperwork will contain data and information that is considered sensitive – it should definitely not fall into the wrong hands. Account data, expenses receipts, and personnel files are especially sensitive and if any of this is taken or goes missing it can lead to serious problems for your business or your employees.

Having these sensitive files shredded professionally will help prevent data theft and identity theft. It will help make sure that your business and your employees are not put in any undue danger and it will help ensure that your employees continue to be happy working for you. Additionally, certain company documents are legally required to be shredded securely, and this means crosscut shredding that is offered by a professional shredding company.

Protect your customers and clients

When a client or customer provides you with data, they expect that data to be kept safe. They don’t expect it to be stolen or used for any other purposes except those that they give express permission for if this happens, it could cause substantial problems for you.

Professional paper shredding services will ensure that every scrap of paper you provide them with is properly disposed of so that the information contained on that paper is gone. Simply throwing the paper away or leaving it for recycling puts your clients in danger and it can lead to damage to your reputation.

No need to shred in house

There’s always the possibility of buying an office shredder and doing the shredding yourself. However, in order to enjoy the same level of security as is offered by a professional company you will need to invest a fair amount in buying an industrial grade shredder.

What’s more, office shredders typically only have a low throughput level and this means that it becomes a very manual task. If you have a lot of waste paper it will take a lot of time to get through the weekly shredding and this is time that you could spend performing other essential tasks.

Quicker waste recycling

The low throughput means that in-house shredding really does take a long time. Even if you use another employee to perform this task for you it means that they will not be able to perform their other tasks.

Paper shredding in this way is tedious and boring, and it will be considered menial by most employees. By having your paperwork shredded you not only protect your reputation and data but you also ensure that paper is shredded quickly, efficiently, effectively, and according to government legislation.

What to consider when selecting a shredding company

When it comes to choosing the right shredding company for you, there’s several things you need to keep in mind:

Personal or professional use?

First of all, you’ll need to establish whether you’re using paper shredding services for personal or professional use. Whether you’re moving house and want to dispose of personal documents or need a larger scale shredding operation to facilitate your business operations, the services you require will differ based on the reason you need them for. Make sure to do the appropriate research and determine if the company you’re selecting can help you with what you want to achieve.

Think about the qualities you are looking for

Whether you’re passionate about sustainability or require high levels of confidentiality, there may be some factors that rank higher than others when it comes to selecting a paper shredding company. Here’s some qualities you should be looking out for:

  1. Recycling and sustainability – the waste you create from shredding can significantly impact the environment. Try to ensure that your shredding service recycles waste responsibly so that you can count on green services that boost your sustainability levels and help the planet. You should also enquire whether a prospective shredding service takes other measures in the interest of the environment, such as having green loyalty programs. Here at Highlander Security Shredding, we offer a responsible waste paper recycling service, collecting things like old corrugated containers and packaging (OCC), Newspapers (NEWS), Periodicals and Magazines (PAMS), multi-grade printing waste, sorted office waste and solid board cuttings. We believe that making paper products from waste paper recycling is far more energy-efficient than simply disposing of it and helps to protect the environment.

  2. Confidentiality – if you’re disposing of highly sensitive information, you’ll want to ensure that a shredding company takes confidentiality very seriously. After all, your materials need to follow a secure chain of custody from collection to destruction.

  3. Accepts a range of materials – you may wish to look for services that can dispose of a variety of documents, including folders, binders, proprietary products and other digital media like disks and hard drives.

  4. On-Site and Off-Site Service shredding options – you may wish to opt for on-site or off-site shredding services, depending on your specific needs. On-site shredding services can be useful in the sense that they limit the misplacement of documents along the way and give you visibility into the process, whereas off-site shredding can be collected on a regularly scheduled or one-time basis. This could be ideal for work from home employees.

  5. No fixed contracts – amongst the chaos of everyday life, you ideally don’t want to get stuck in a fixed contract you can’t escape from. At Highlander, we promise to contact each of one of our customers at your contract renewal and personally discuss the renewal with you. We will always help and guide you as much as we can when you are speaking with your existing supplier to end your contract, and depending upon the terms and your cancellation fee, we may be able to assist with buying you out of your old contract so that you can start using our services quicker.

Professional paper shredding services at Highlander Security Shredding

Here at Highlander Security Shredding, we proudly provide confidential document shredding, paper shredding and paper recycling services across Scotland. Our services are available to companies, individuals and households alike, with our team working hard to ensure that your waste paper and documents are handled responsibly at every stage.

With our confidential document shredding service, you can rest assured that your documents will be kept confidential throughout the process, helping to eliminate the risk of data breaches and protect your business against costly fines or reputation damage. All confidential waste is shredded within 24 hours of collection, plus all of our paper shredding is recycled. For premium shredding services in Edinburgh, contact us today to find out more about what we do.

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