Document shredding: the benefits beyond just protecting company data

Document shredding: the benefits beyond just protecting company data

With the Protection of Personal Information Act having just come into effect in South Africa, the benefits of shredding confidential company and customer information are obvious. But what about the environmental benefits, and the carbon footprint-offset offered to corporates that include document shredding in their waste programmes?

Well, there are multiple gains, and they're significant. The most important is that all shredded documents are 100% recycled to be used in new paper-based products.

By recycling paper, the carbon that was originally stored by trees in the wood fibre remains 'locked' in the paper, and therefore out of the atmosphere, for longer compared to single-use paper that goes straight into a landfill.

According to RecyclePaperZA, thousands of tonnes of good quality, recyclable paper end up in South African landfills every year. 'This paper degrades along with other food waste, adding to the levels of greenhouse gases (GHGs) in the air we breathe. One of these GHGs is methane which is 20 times more potent than carbon dioxide,' the local paper recycling association says.

Recycling also extends the life of landfills; one tonne of recovered paper equals three cubic metres of landfill space.

In addition, recycled paper fibre is an important raw material needed to produce packaging and tissue products. Around 65% of South Africa's paper mills depend on recycled fibre and for many mills, it is their only source of fibre.

The often-touted statistic that one tonne of recycled paper saves 17 trees, doesn't apply to South Africa, as all our locally produced paper comes from pine trees farmed specifically for this purpose, not indigenous trees.

However, using virgin paper - no matter the source - still has a huge carbon footprint compared to using recycled paper in new products. It takes more energy, water and wood to produce all-new paper products compared to recycled paper products.

For example, 2.5 tonnes of wood are required to produce one tonne of virgin fibre paper versus the 1.2 tonnes of wastepaper required to produce one tonne of recycled paper. Quite simply, more new wood used equals more carbon produced.

When the inherent potential of paper recycling is maximised, virgin paper - after its first use - can be recycled up to five times before it is relegated to its end use. That's one lot of virgin wood ultimately 'producing' five lots of paper.

As a corporate, these are important facts to understand, as they provide a measure of exactly how you are offsetting your carbon footprint as an organisation.

At Cleardata, all wastepaper collected for shredding is weighed, so we know exactly how many tonnes of paper your company recycles every month. And because every piece of paper that we shred is recycled, we can also gauge how much carbon your organisation has saved.

It is clear that the benefits of document shredding extend far beyond just protecting sensitive company and customer information, and includes the increasingly important corporate responsibility of environmental accountability too.