We live in an era where most of us receive loads of personal information, business documents, and bills digitally or on paper. One of the best and safest ways to deal with paper based documents is to shred them using a personal shredded. However, if you are really serious about preventing inappropriate use of your sensitive information, just shredding your documents is not enough. Depending on their security level, shredding machines cut paper documents into differently sized pieces. If your home shredder produces relatively larger pieces of paper, it may be possible for someone to put them together. This is why safe disposal of shredder paper is extremely important.
Here are some of the best ways to ensure that your shredded paper documents are disposed safely.
- The safest option for you is to use shredders with a higher security levels compared to an average home shredder. The most secure type of paper shredders can cut papers into pieces with a width of less than 1 mm. On a single shred generated by these machines, a maximum of only 4 characters can be seen. Though these shredders are quite expensive, you may consider using them for destruction of highly sensitive paper documents.
- Recycling is another great disposal technique that not only protects your privacy, but is also environment friendly. However, before recycling your shredded documents, it is important to ensure that the information on the shredded paper is not highly confidential and it has been properly shredded.
- Another environmentally responsible way of dealing with shredded paper documents is composting. The addition of paper may significantly benefit your compost pile because it is high in carbon. However, if you are considering this as your disposal alternative, be mindful of the fact that leaving shredded paper out in the open may create an opportunity for others to discover it. Also, while most types of papers can be put into a compost pile, please avoid including firmly inked or shiny paper.
- Paper is an excellent food for plants because it is manufactured from recycled tree fibre. Therefore, shredded paper can be buried after mixing water so that the ink becomes unreadable. If you generate a lot of paper documents bearing sensitive information, this is a great way of disposing the shredded paper pieces. In this simple technique, paper will decompose quickly, leaving no trace of your sensitive information.
- If you have a barbeque or fireplace at home, disposal of shredded papers is never a concern for you. By using shredded paper fragments as fire starter, you can safely deal with them in quick time. All your sensitive information will be lost in flames and none will ever be able to access them.
- Finally, if you are really serious about safe disposal of shredded documents, avoid using professional shredding services because this will not allow you to determine the mode of disposal. Instead, use your own shredding machine so that you have the disposal in your own hands.
Please contact our document shredding experts at Mastershred for all your queries related to safe destruction and disposal of your documents.