>outsourcing would be a better solution. The
>commercial destructors who provide destruction at your location have
>machines designed for that purpose. Most if not all now do cross-cut
>shredding rather than strip shred. Also they will provide you with the
>appropriate locked container to hold the materials until there next
>service date. That service date could be daily, weekly, monthly
>depending upon the volume.


A couple of cautionary words about contracting with a third party for
shredding.

1) MAKE SURE they are doing the shredding themselves and not
sub-contracting it out to someone else, because while you have control over
what you have agreed to in your Contract, you don't have control over the
subcontractor.

2) Make sure you are given some level of assurance of the method of
shredding YOUR SPECIFIC MATERIALS will receive.  If you need confidential
shredding (crosscut, to a specific size) or if standard shredding (strip,
to another specific size) is required, make sure that's what you're getting.

3) Ask how many days (hours) after your materials are picked up they will
be physically destroyed and ensure that the destruction certificates you
receive are date and time stamped after the destruction has occurred, not
just after the records are picked up.

I had a client (in another life) who had a destruction certificate for
records sent to a 3rd party, but it turned out they used a subcontractor
and had to save up the records until they had a specific volume before they
would get picked up and processed... and it typically took them 30-45 days
to reach that volume.  The records were sitting on the dock awaiting
pickup, and my client got a court order to cease destruction and produce
records related to a certain incident.  Although they had a destruction
certificate for these, it seems the plaintiffs attorney was able to find
out these records existed and HAD NOT BEEN DESTROYED... and my client had
to produce them.

Larry

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