This paid piece is sponsored by Novak Sanitary Service.

If you use Novak Sanitary Service for your home trash service, there’s another benefit that you should know.

“If you’re a Novak customer, we’re going to shred your documents for free,” general manager Patrick Draisey said. “It’s a cool perk to make sure you’re secure when it comes to your sensitive information.”

All you need to do is bring your documents to shred to Dakota Data Shred, a division of Novak Sanitary Service. You can leave them with the front desk at Novak, 5000 W. 8^th St., which is open Monday through Friday from 7:30 a.m. to 5 p.m.

What should be shredded?

All sensitive information should be shredded, and that includes junk mail or paperwork with the following information:

• Account numbers
• Birth dates
• Passwords and PINs
• Signatures
• Social Security numbers

To further protect your privacy, also consider shredding anything that includes:

• Names
• Addresses
• Phone numbers
• Email addresses

This could include items you’ve not considered shedding.

For instance, address labels from junk mail or magazines, canceled and voided checks, expired passports and visas and even luggage tags. Your medical and dental records, pre-approved credit card applications, used airline tickets, utility bills and even your kids’ report cards should go in the shredder.

Just make sure you’ve not included any actual trash with your material to be shredded – including anything that could cause damage to the shredder.

Want to feel even better about your shredding? You’re helping be more “green” when you do it.

“We take all the paper we shred and it goes to a pulping mill,” Draisey said. “They remove the ink and the paper is then turned into different recyclable items like paper towels and toilet paper.”

It all adds up, too: Dakota Data Shred is on track to shed 5.5 million pounds this year, up from 5.3 million last year and 4.8 million in 2020.

Shredding for businesses

Businesses, your shredding likely needs a different level of attention – and Dakota Data Shred can take care of that too.

The division is certified by the National Association of Information Destruction, which demands the highest form of regulatory compliance, to destroy paper and printed media, microfiche and film, computer hard drives and non-paper media. There’s even an annual in-depth background check performed on all employees who work in shredding materials.

“Reach out to us if you’re a business spending hours and hours shredding documents,” Draisey said. “We can make that a lot quicker and save you a lot of time. You can schedule pickups, we can bring you a big bin, we can load up boxes on palettes and be very flexible. We can pretty much accommodate everything when it comes to our shredding business.”

Dakota Data Shred works with businesses of all sizes and all kinds of shredding needs, said Melissa Wenck, document destruction sales representative.

“Any business that has confidential material – it could be for HIPAA compliance, or customers’ confidential information or your own business information,” she said. “We have many businesses we visit regularly, including weekly.”

All paper is weighed to determine the cost.

Dakota Data Shred also can destroy microfiche and film, CDs, DVDs, magnetic tapes, floppy disks, USB storage devices, cell phones and hard drives.

“We have a contraption that will take the hard drive and bend it so it’s inoperable,” Wenck said. “We can destroy credit cards with a similar approach.”

There is a cost per hard drive but the other items are measured by weight.

Businesses looking to learn more or request Dakota Data Shred service can call 605-373-9281.

And for more information on Dakota Data Shred, click here.