Document Destruction

But what about the new ways to store information? How do you protect mag tape, circuit boards, CD-ROMs, microfiche? Or, as Vince DelVecchio of manufacturer Whitaker Bros. puts it, "How is the destruction of the future going to be done?"

Two words: disintegrators and degaussers.

Disintegrators are essentially shredders on steroids. Sharp knives inside a unit slice away at whatever you give them until the material is small enough to fit through a screen at the bottom. You can change the size of the screen to meet your security needs.

Degaussers are like something Tom Clancy dreamt up. Either stationary boxes or mobile wands, they rearrange the particles of electronic media, erasing everything from CD-ROMs, hard drives, floppies, and so on. (Don't let them fall into enemy hands!) Most of them allow you to reuse the media after the data is erased.

Three manufacturers have a headlock on the shredder/disintegrator/degausser market: Schleicher & Co., Whitaker Bros. and Security Engineered Machinery (SEM). But don't be fooled. As with copiers, shredders often are made by one company and end up on the sales floor with any one of a number of labels. For example, Whitaker sells a lot of Schleicher machines.

A search of GSA Advantage turned up 388 shredders (most by the big three) and six degaussers.

Contacts

Schleicher & Co.
(800) 775-2122

Whitaker Brothers
(800) 243-9226

Security Engineered Machinery (SEM)
(800) 225-9293