How To Destroy Documents Without A Shredder (But We Don’t Recommend It!)
As private citizens and public business owners, our lives are full of sensitive documentation. It could be bills or invoices with your personal or financial information on it. It could be old insurance cards or simply the hard drive that you use when you work at home sometimes.
As we’ve detailed in a previous blog, the United States of America has a series of robust laws designed specifically to keep this sensitive information out of the hands of criminals and other unsavory types who might seek to use it in illegal ways.
These laws include:
- The Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act (PIPEDA)
- The Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health (HITECH) Act
- The Fair and Accurate Credit Transactions Act (FACTA)
- The Gramm-Leach-Bliley (GLB) Act of 1999
- The Federal Trade Commission (FTC)’s “Red Flags Rule”
We’ll delve into the content of each of these laws, and how it may impact your life or business in a future post. For now, it should suffice to say that each one sets forth strict parameters for information storage and security that are intended to keep consumers and businesses safe. To dispose of or destroy documents improperly puts you at risk for serious fines and/or prison time.
That’s why Shred Monkeys is dedicated to providing secure, compliant document destruction services throughout South Florida. Through our convenient mobile, drop-off, and pick-up shredding services we’ve helped hundreds of people in Pembroke Pines keep their information from falling into the wrong hands.
But we’ll admit that our mobile shredding services aren’t the only way to properly destroy sensitive paper and electronic documentation.
You could feed it through a shredder yourself, though this is hardly efficient and will probably waste you a lot of money in time and labor. You could also take the time to tear or cut them into pieces by hand, using scissors, but that will probably drive you crazy before you’ve gotten through a single file box of documents.
If you want to get a little outlandish with it, you might also want to try one of the following:
- Burning – Do you have an outdoor fire pit? If so, you may be able to reduce that mountain of documentation into a pile of ashes by setting it ablaze. The only problem with this is that it will create a plume of smelly, unsightly smoke while your destruction session occurs, and your neighbors might call the fire department. How embarrassing.
- Washing – In this case, the “washing” of documents isn’t to clean them but to render them completely useless and unreadable by the introduction of water, and in some cases bleach. Simply throw the papers in a container or bathtub, fill it with water, and stir it around until the paper starts to breakdown and return to a pulp-like state. If you’re still worried about someone being able to dry and read the print, introduce some bleach which will completely destroy the ink. Be prepared for some really weird looks from your family when they try to take a shower but can’t because the tub’s full of paper pulp.
Instead of going through all this trouble to destroy documents on your own, wouldn’t it be much easier to simply call Shred Monkeys for mobile paper shredding service? We’ll come right to your home or business and shred your documents while you watch! No fires of pulpy bathtubs required. CALL NOW!