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What to do with confidential waste when working from home?

When working in an office environment, many of us don’t give too much thought to the amount of paper we are using and what happens to it when we pop it in the recycling bin or confidential waste bin. At Barna, we provide a confidential waste shredding service to businesses, with many offices now closed the question remains, what can you do with confidential waste when working from home.

The best approach is to have a conversation with your employer and see what policies they have in place or could potentially put in place to help ensure confidential waste is disposed of correctly.

Key questions to ask are:

• Do we have a company waste management policy?
• Are we permitted to use shredders at home, if so, can one be supplied?
• How can we use the existing confidential waste bin in the office?
• What are our policies on the storing of confidential information whilst working from home?
• When can I use the office to drop off confidential waste?

Many people are trying to ensure their home office environment is clutter-free, with some aiming to go paperless as much as possible. Utilising digital resources to download or save any notes or key comments on confidential based work instead of printing these documents off and writing on them.

As we continue to work from home for another while longer, here are Barna’s top tips to working from home securely:

• Only use approved technology for handling confidential information.
• Be mindful of your workspace and who is nearby when discussing confidential information.
• When printing out documents, where possible be sure to follow your company’s policy on handling and storing confidential documents.
• Try not to mix work documents with personal documents.
• If available, use a safe or secure cabinet to lock away your work documents.

Barna’s offices remain open, so please get in touch if you have any queries on handling waste while working from home. You can contact us here.