When cleaning out an office, basement, attic, storage room, or old filing cabinet, it’s common to come across documents that have been sitting untouched for 10, 20, 30, or even 40 years. That often leads to an important question:
Do very old files and documents really need to be shredded?
In many cases, yes.
Just because a document is old does not mean the information on it is no longer private or sensitive. If you have decided that old records can be disposed of, shredding is one of the safest ways to make sure the information they contain does not end up in the wrong hands.
Old Documents Can Still Contain Valuable Information
Think about what may be sitting inside an old file cabinet or storage box. Even decades-old records can contain:
- Social Security numbers
- Dates of birth
- Home addresses
- Bank account information
- Tax identification numbers
- Employee information
- Medical information
- Customer or client records
- Payroll records
- Old checks and financial statements
- Insurance information
- Contracts and legal documents
- Credit card information
Some information may be outdated, but plenty of it can still be useful to an identity thief.
A Social Security number doesn’t become useless simply because it was printed on a document 25 years ago. The same can be true of names, birth dates, signatures and other personally identifiable information.
Don’t Assume Old Means Safe to Throw Away
One of the biggest mistakes people make during a cleanout is assuming that old paperwork can simply be placed in the regular garbage or recycling bin.
Once documents leave your control, you may have no idea who could gain access to them.
For businesses, the issue can be even more important. Old files may contain confidential information about former employees, customers, patients, vendors or business transactions. Depending on the type of records and your industry, privacy and information-security requirements may also apply.
Before destroying business records, however, make sure you are legally permitted to dispose of them. Certain documents need to be retained for specific periods for tax, legal, regulatory or operational reasons.
Once you have determined that a document no longer needs to be retained, shredding is the safer choice.
What About Documents That Are 30 or 40 Years Old?
Age alone shouldn’t determine whether a document needs to be shredded.
Instead, ask a simple question:
Does this document contain information that I wouldn’t want a stranger to see?
If the answer is yes, shred it.
This approach also makes a big cleanout easier. You don’t have to examine every page and decide whether one particular piece of information is still useful to an identity thief.
If the paperwork is no longer needed and could contain confidential or personal information, have it securely destroyed.
Have Boxes and Boxes of Old Files? That’s Not a Problem
People sometimes put off cleaning out old records because there are simply too many of them.
Maybe you inherited boxes of paperwork from your parents. Perhaps your business has a storage room filled with records dating back decades. You could be closing a business, retiring from a professional practice, moving to a smaller office, or finally cleaning out a basement full of old files.
You don’t need to spend days feeding a few sheets at a time into a small office shredder.
FileShred can come directly to your location and shred your old documents for you.
Our powerful mobile shredding trucks are designed to destroy large quantities of documents quickly and securely. We do the work, and your documents are destroyed at your location before our truck leaves.
You Don’t Have to Prepare the Documents
Another reason people postpone shredding old files is because they think they need to prepare everything first.
With FileShred, there is very little preparation required.
There’s no need to remove ordinary staples, paper clips, rubber bands or file folders. Our industrial shredding equipment can handle them along with your documents.
Have old papers in boxes? That’s fine.
Have files stored in a basement or upstairs? Let us know. Our team can do the heavy lifting and move the documents to our shredding truck.
The goal is to make getting rid of decades of accumulated paperwork as easy as possible.
Secure On-Site Document Shredding
FileShred offers on-site document shredding for homes and businesses throughout Connecticut and the Springfield, Massachusetts area.
Your documents are placed into a secure shredding container and moved directly to our mobile shredding truck. The container is mechanically lifted into the truck, where the documents are destroyed immediately.
You can even witness your documents being shredded.
Once your shredding service is complete, you receive a Certificate of Destruction, and the shredded paper is recycled.
FileShred is also NAID AAA Certified, giving our customers the confidence of working with a professional document destruction company that follows strict security standards.
Old Paperwork? Shred It and Be Done With It
If you’ve been staring at old filing cabinets or boxes of paperwork for years, there is no reason to keep putting off the cleanout.
First, determine which records you are legally or personally required to keep. Then securely destroy the documents you no longer need.
Whether your files are five years old or fifty years old, if they contain private information, don’t simply throw them away. Shred them.
FileShred makes the process simple. We offer one-time and ongoing shredding services for residential and business customers, with convenient service available Monday through Saturday.
Have a few boxes? We can help.
Have hundreds of boxes? We can help with that too.
Call FileShred at 860-261-9595 and tell us how many old files you need to get rid of. We can provide a quote and help you schedule your on-site shredding service for a day that works for you.
FileShred — Shredding Made Easy.
