The questions below are our most commonly received from clients we've spoken to.

Why do I need a confidential data destruction service?
Confidential data includes business and personal records in paper form. This could include personal details on employees - home address, bank account etc which could be used to enable identity theft, this information is covered in the Data Protection Act.

However the majority of our clients see the biggest benefits coming from protecting their business details from getting into the wrong hands. Documents such as customer lists, current purchasing and selling prices, HR documents and company strategy documents.

How does using Green Plan-it help with our security and recycling processes?
On request, Green Plan-it will visit your site and conduct a free Environment & Risk Assessment (ERA). From this ERA we can feedback our findings and recommend any possible area's for improvement including how we or other recycling companies could help.

What area's typically need improving and how do you do this?
Security or recycling systems most commonly fail when a company's system adds time or inconvenience to an employee's workload. Documents that should be shredded will often end up in a waiting pile, on a desk or even in general waste if the Data Processor (any person able to handle confidential information) doesn't like or want the task, particularly when under time pressure.

Where Green Plan-it can help is by providing a system that takes away the inconvenience and the time it takes to shred / dispose, this means the employee will use the system ensuring security and the employer will benefit financially from the time saved in the working day therefore reducing cost.

How do you create a convenient yet safe system for a business?
Firstly we recommend a product that matches the need, for confidential documents this is usually solid, lockable wooden cabinets. Each cabinet has a slot for posting documents, folders and files up to 3cm wide (approx. Yellow Pages thickness) and comes with its own customer key for emergencies. You will not need to remove any staples, clips, covers or even binding combs.
We then agree a frequency of collection which can be from daily to monthly. The number of cabinets and frequency would depend on the usage of the business and the commitment of the business to security and or recycling.

What happens to the confidential documents after being put into the secure cabinets?
On accepting Green Plan-it we will bespoke you a package to suit your needs, this includes a pre-set frequency where we lay out in advance the dates of visit for the year ahead and confirm this to you in writing. On the specified date our ID'd Customer Service Operator (CSO) will report to your reception and ask for the contact, the CSO will manually collect the contents of each cabinet located around your premises; accompanied if you wish.

The collected material will be locked in a security sack and taken to the vehicle.

The secured vehicle will return to the shredding facility with the load, here it is placed into a pit fitted with an industrial conveyor that takes the material into the shredding machine.

From the shredder the shredded material falls into another pit fitted with a conveyor that takes the material into the baler.

This plant can handle material at a rate of 67KG's per minute, it is fully secure with internal & external CCTV recording the entire operation 24/7 and all employees are vetted prior to starting employment with us.

The shredded material is then recycled to produce lower grade paper products such as paper towels & packaging.

What about the environment, how can Green Plan-it help with this?
We guarantee* to recycle any material collected from your site / location (*where recycling can be achieved). The easiest and most effective material to recycle is paper based as this can be easily turned back into paper based products and re-used. This recycling of paper has a huge beneficial impact on the numbers of earth's trees.

How will recycling my paper / cardboard help the environment?
It's a staggering fact but did you know that it takes between 17 & 19 trees to create just 1 tonne of paper? Tree numbers are essential to the earth's atmosphere because of their natural absorption of CO2; CO2 is created when we burn fossil fuels, the carbon contained in these fuels that has been locked away for millions of years is released into the air causing the earth's temperature to rise.

Without trees we have only limited ways of removing the harmful CO2 from the air.

If I join Green Plan-it how will I know what contribution I've made to the environment by recycling my company's confidential or non confidential waste paper?
After each collection and shred you will receive a Certificate of Destruction along with a Waste Transfer Note. Not only does this give you documentation that could be used in a court of law to defend against any Data Protection Act contravenes but it also gives you a final destination for confidential information & waste required for certain ISO standards.

As an additional benefit the Certificate of Destruction details the weight collected and recycled, this can be used to assess to total number of trees you've saved. On average one of our cabinets full of paper equals half a tree saved.

At the end of each year every Green Plan-it regular service client will receive an attractive Environmental Certificate which details how many trees they've saved during the last 12 months that can be proudly displayed anywhere in your business.

How much does the service cost?
The service can cost as little or as much as you like depending on your requirements however we can claim to have saved all of our clients money on their existing systems with the security achieved.

Importantly what we can offer is a fixed cost billing option giving you full control of your budget.

What about the security cabinets, how much do they cost?
All of our containers are supplied and fitted free of charge, this includes locking wooden security cabinets. All we stipulate is that the client is responsible for replacement costs if they damage a container.

What happens if we have more material to collect than we agreed as our limit, e.g. after a year end archive clearance?
On inception we will agree a KG rate for 'extra materials', if you have gone above your agreed limit you will only pay this KG rate for each additional KG over your limit allowing you to run your archiving without concerns over generating more documents.

Can we do our own collecting from the containers for collection from a central point?
Yes, although we don't often recommend that clients collect and move their own security sacks for a number of reasons, one of which is the Health & Safety risk to employees carrying heavy materials without the correct, documented lifting training.

But the main reason is that that's what makes our service exceptional - we do it all; meaning you or your employees don't have to.