Working out whether your business should choose on site shredding or off site shredding is an important decision. There are pros and cons to both options, and as long as you have the professional support of an experienced shredding team, you can be sure that you are processing and destroying physical and digital media in the most secure way, adhering to GDPR and maintaining a safe working environment that protects the information relating to your employees, customers, and suppliers.
What are the differences between off-site and on-site shredding?
What is on-site shredding?
This is where a shredding provider brings a shredding truck and equipment to your business location, collects the waste documents on site and shreds them before leaving. What this means is that there is immediate destruction of documents within a few minutes of your waste bins being emptied, leaving nothing but tiny fragments of paper. You can watch the documents being destroyed if you wish, from the moment the bin is picked up and taken out to the shredder to be diced. For mobile, on-site shredding, the process is incredibly simple. You are present at every stage, which limits the possibilities of mistakes being made and documents being missed.
What is off-site shredding?
This is a process where the shredding service arrives at your business location, picks up the waste materials, emptying all shredding cabinets and bins into a van, and removes them to be destroyed at a secure location. Although the destruction of your documents will take place imminently, it might not be immediate, as is the case with on-site shredding. The additional steps and extra people to handle the materials in question does offer potential for mistakes, but the most professional companies understand the process and offer documents of destruction, time stamps so you know when and how your documents have been destroyed and offer a regular shredding service with defined pick-ups.
How to store documents ready for shredding
How you store your paper waste prior to collection by a shredding service will depend on how much confidential waste you have and what type of waste it is. You can utilise security sacks and ties, wheelie bins that are lockable and only key personnel have access to open, secure skips, or lockable containers that the shredding service alone can open on shredding days.
Choosing between on-site and off-site shredding
If you like to have an eye on the entire process from start to finish, on-site shredding might be the best option for you. This does mean that you need the space for the destruction to take place on site, which isn’t always possible. Off-site shredding requires only collection of your documents on a regular basis, which could be weekly, monthly, or whatever suits the amount of waste you have. If your business has a backlog of materials that require destruction, including physical hardware and other digital media, off-site shredding would be more applicable, before you move on to regular shredding which could take place either on-site or off-site. As long as you ensure you have secure bins for the materials and that your staff understand they have a responsibility to place materials in the bin every single day, whichever route you choose will work well.
For the best confidential shredding service for your Irish business, consider the factors above. How regular does your business need the professional services of a shredding company? How much paper waste do you create? Is there a need for digital waste management on top of physical media? All of these things, and more, come together to provide you with the answers to make a fully informed decision on whether to shred your sensitive business documents on site or off site. Always be sure that whichever route you choose, that it is with a trustworthy company that provides transparent processes and documents of destruction to maintain high safety standards when processing and destroying personal data.
