Believe it or not, but dumpster diving has become an acceptable way of life for some. The “freegan” movement may be contributing to this growing acceptance of rooting through other peoples’ trash in search of perfectly good, reusable stuff. No matter how you feel about this, you may want to take a few precautions to make sure that your personal information remains safe.

For example, credit card statements, utility bills, insurance and medical forms, and other documents containing sensitive personal information should be shredded with a document shredder
before being placed in the trash. If shredding documents is too big of a hassle, another option is to use an ID guard stamp to cover up your most sensitive information.

Another issue involves disposing of computers and storage media. Even if you take your old computer to a recycler, make sure to wipe the drive clean – and then physically smash it with a sledge hammer – so that your data can’t be accessed by bad guys with sophisticated data recovery tools.

Document shredders and ID guard stamps are available from Stacks and Stacks.com

Until Next Time,
The Tractor Export Team
www.tractorexport.com
www.xportag.com