Even if you are not a large company, there are easy ways to deal with outdated, confidential materials, other than sitting in front of a shredder feeding 3-10 pages at a time.

In my work with small companies, how to get rid of documents is a frequently asked question in the struggle to manage paper. The organization may have two or three file cabinets whose contents need to be disposed of, and they do not know what to do with them.

If you have accumulated several boxes of papers to shred, consider using one of the mobile trucks that come right to your establishment, roll in a large bin and let you load that up. The prices are very affordable. Some start as low as a $55 minimum at 13 cents a pound. Others may have a slightly higher minumum, but lower per-pound cost: $75 with 10 cents per pound.

There are national businesses and local companies who can help. You may actually watch the truck machinery as it shreds the material into a recyclable product, so it’s also a win for the environment.

When you are calculate the time invested in shredding by hand, this may be a much easier, more cost-conscious way of clearing out the old and starting fresh in 2008.