Whether you have your own business, work in an office team, or tend to collect documents and receipts, you know that paper items are all around us. These documents are undeniably essential, and keeping them safe and well-organised is important for many reasons, from compliance to safety, record-keeping, and day-to-day organisation. 

Nonetheless, when it comes down to disposing of documents and files that you have been collecting, throwing them in the garbage bin may not do the trick. This choice can negatively impact the environment, prevent recycling, and contribute to landfills – plus, it can lead to safety and privacy concerns! 

Fortunately, there’s a lot that you can do to safely dispose of these paper items. Let’s see why shredding should be your strategy of choice in this guide by Britannia Lanes Shredding.

5 Benefits of Document Shredding

We all understand the importance of recycling in today’s world. But understanding the best practices to support recycling isn’t always as straightforward. Focusing on paper items, and documents, it’s important to know that shredding is a best practice that can significantly boost recycling efforts, getting the paper items ready for reuse, upcycling, and recycling. 

In the sections below, we’ll cover these benefits – as well as the advantages of shredding for security and organisation – in more detail. 

Reducing Environmental Impact

Let’s start with the main benefit of shredding: reducing the environmental impact of paper products. When paper documents are shredded or systematically destroyed, they become easier to process. This can reduce the demand for virgin paper, and ultimately conserve trees, energy, and other natural resources. Plus, shredded paper can be recycled to create new usable paper, which helps reduce the amount of waste that ends up in landfills every day. 

Enhancing Data Security

Now that we’ve covered the environmental benefits of shredded paper, let’s look at why this is an important strategy for other reasons. Let’s start with data security. Paper documents are still used for a wide range of purposes, including making copies of important documents like property deeds, medical records, and legal files. In offices and business spaces, paper documents can carry important legal and financial information that should be treated attentively. 

Some of these may no longer be needed at some point, but this doesn’t mean that you can just throw them in the bin alongside other paper and carton items. Doing so can cause privacy and compliance liability, and even expose you to threats like getting your identity and financial details stolen. 

Instead, shredding your documents and getting specialised companies to destroy them systematically can give you the peace of mind that your paper items can be recycled and won’t give away important details. 

Saving Storage Space

Next up, shredding your documents is an excellent way to streamline your home or office storage space. Shredded documents can be disposed of simply, without taking up as much space as entire files. 

This is important also for environmental reasons! In fact, reducing clutter in your personal or professional living space reduces the need for other resources, such as heating, cooling, lighting, and maintenance of storage shelves and boxes. 

Facilitating Recycling Efforts

Whether you are looking to encourage your business to go green or are trying to reduce the environmental impact of your household, shredding your documents is a great starting point. 

Shredded documents aid recycling by breaking paper fibres down, making them easier to reprocess. What’s more, industrial shredders cut paper into fine pieces, increasing the surface area. This is an important aspect to focus on, because increased surface area speeds up the pulping process, which is where water and chemicals turn paper back into pulp. 

This pulp then gets cleaned, filtered, and transformed into new paper products. This method reduces the need for virgin paper production, which requires far more extensive resources and energy!

Complying with Legal Requirements

In the UK, staying compliant with legal requirements like GDPR is crucial for businesses and individuals alike. And, because of this, it’s also important to know that privacy laws require personal data to be properly disposed of – and that’s where document shredding is a go-to method! 

Shredding transforms sensitive documents into unreadable pieces, ensuring they can’t be misused. This process not only meets GDPR requirements but also aligns with the Data Protection Act of 2018. Ultimately, when opting for shredding documents, you can look after the data and sensitive information of your family, colleagues, or business!

Getting Started with Document Shredding

Now that we’ve covered the environmental and safety benefits of document shredding, let’s briefly look at how to get started. The tips below can help you find the best ways to dispose of your business and personal documents in the best way – for your own privacy and the environment alike!

Implementing a Shredding Policy

Within your business, it may be critical to implement a document shredding policy. This means that documents that contain sensitive information and are no longer used will need to be adequately destroyed to safeguard personal and financial data. When outlining your policy, be sure to:

• Determine what kind of documents will need shredding
• Train employees on shredding best practices to prevent important files from being accidentally destroyed.
• Set up a shredding schedule that meets the rhythm of your business operations.

Ensuring That your Documents Are Safely Backed Up

Before getting started with shredding, it is important to ensure that the documents that you’ll need to keep on record are properly backed up. Saving virtual copies or scanning paper files can help you and your team or family members access the information needed whenever they need it most, without having to go through physical papers. 

When backing up your documents, ensure you choose a cloud-based system that is both user-friendly and highly secure. For example, check that it has features like multi-factor authentication and access control. 

Finding a Specialised Document Destruction Company

When it comes to shredding your documents, you may have more than one question. That’s where working with a specialist like Britannia Lanes Shredding can help. Specialists in the sector know how to handle documents to maintain privacy and comply with GDPR laws, and they will take care of the disposing and recycling of each document after they’ve been shredded for unparalleled peace of mind.