At Last – It’s Shredding Day!: What to Expect and How to Prepare

shred day

You’ve decided. There are some documents that require shredding.

Whether it’s to clean things up around the home office or to ensure that industry policies are followed, paper shredding is an effective, economical way to get the job done. But what, exactly, does a typical shredding appointment entail? Today, we’re going to walk you through what you can expect from a shredding appointment, what you can do to get ready for it, and what happens to your shredded documents once they’ve been destroyed.

Getting Things Ready

Before any shredding can happen, you must first identify what papers you want to be destroyed.  They can be in boxes, garbage bags, file cabinets, or any containers you have available.  Our staff will do all the heavy lifting when we arrive to shred your papers.  Then make an appointment with our helpful customer service staff. You can do this either online or by calling our office. Either way, we’ll assist you with choosing the right service for your document destruction project and give you pricing that you will find affordable and free of any hidden fees or surcharges. We’ll also answer any questions you may have about the process.  Don’t worry about removing staples, paper clips, rubber bands, or any other paper fasteners, our commercial shredder will cut them into pieces.

There are several different options for your shredding day:

  • One-Time – If you’re only looking for a one-time purge, a single visit from our shred trucks might be perfectly sufficient for your needs.
  • Scheduled – This option is best for offices and individuals who regularly process sensitive information, whether it’s private customer details or business documents that should be properly disposed of. We’ll work with you to determine a schedule for regular document destruction.
  • Community Event – Give back to the community and thank your customers by providing an invaluable service. Whether it’s to spread awareness about the rates of identity theft or to help collect for a charity, a community event can be a practical (and surprisingly fun) way to accomplish those goals.
  • Hard Drive Shredding – Paper isn’t the only thing we process. We can also shred hard drives and other electronic media or storage devices.
  • Home Shredding – Even if it’s only a few boxes of documents, we can also arrange an appointment for home shredding, as soon as the next day.

Our customer service representatives will have more detailed information, depending on the type of service you request, but you’ll typically be asked to gather whatever items need to be shredded. If your shredding is regularly scheduled, we’ll provide free, secure containers that you can use throughout the office. If it’s a one-time shred or a community event, we’ll accept documents in any container.

You`ll want to make sure that wherever you opt to host the shredding day is in a place large enough for the shredding truck and any guests you may have. A parking lot is one of the most common locations, so make sure you obtain any permits necessary to occupy the space.

The Moment (and Truck) Arrives

It’s shredding time. Your FileShred truck, capable of destroying 6,000 pounds of paper an hour, will come to meet you at your office, home, or other agreed-upon location. Our helpful, well-trained, and fully certified staff will greet you, and then will begin the shredding process.

Documents or items to be shredded will be collected into our security bins, which are specially designed to hold up to 300 pounds of paper. These bins will be locked into place on our shredding truck, and, with the press of a single button, will be lifted, tipping the contents directly into the metal teeth of our cross-cutting shredder. You’ll even be able to watch the process, as a viewing monitor on the side of the truck transmits every second of the documents’ destruction.

Where Does it Go?

Once the last few pieces of paper have been chewed into tiny particles, our staff will provide you with a Certificate of Destruction for your records. They will then transport the shredded documents to a paper mill, where the paper will be cleaned, sorted from any non-paper materials, and repurposed into new paper materials. No trace of any sensitive information will be left.

If the shredded materials were electronic in nature, a similar process will occur. They will be securely transported to a recycling facility, where the particles will be sifted and sorted into different component categories. Once organized, these tiny particles can be reused to create new items. It`s actually easier to recover rare earth metals, like lanthanum and terbium, from recycled electronics than it is to harvest them from the ground!

You can relax in the knowledge that a document shredding service is one of the best ways to guarantee that the information contained will be securely and responsibly discarded. You`ll even receive a Certificate of Destruction, confirming that the data was disposed of by a certified service according to all the latest industry standards.

Call (855) 54-SHRED or contact us via online messaging to book your shredding day!