The premium buys custody control, not a stronger shred: NAID AAA words the hard-drive destruction standard the same way for trucks and plants, and NIST does not rank shredding first for high-security media. On the published US numbers the two options never cross, and the two circulating premium percentages contradict the per-unit prices on their own source pages. Includes the visit-minimum arithmetic, the one SEC-documented custody failure, and what no source here can settle.
Ontario's EEE Regulation obligates producers, meaning brand holders and importers of new equipment, plus registered haulers, refurbishers and processors. Retiring your own IT assets puts you in none of those roles. Vendor-side registration still matters, because recovered material only counts toward a producer's recovery target when a registered processor handles it. RPRA publishes every registrant by role, and the ITT/AV processor list held 18 entities on July 29, 2026.
Only one of seven Ontario ITAD and destruction providers checked in August 2026 published a rate: CA$10 per hard drive, in Toronto. Everywhere else pricing sits behind a quote form, because volume, media mix, site access, documentation scope and resale value all move the number. Published US benchmarks run roughly US$7 to US$20 per drive and are not Ontario prices. The practical fix is a real asset list plus a quote broken into the same blocks Ontario public buyers require.
Seven records, not one certificate: a serialized inventory, chain-of-custody receipts, per-serial destruction certificates, an exception report naming failed or missing drives, a recycling certificate with weights and downstream disposition, a resale settlement statement, and a final disposition report that reconciles to what you shipped. NIST SP 800-88 Rev. 2 defines the certificate fields, and NAID AAA requires the serial number log be returned to the customer.
NAID AAA is issued per service platform and media type, not as a blanket badge. Onsite hard-drive destruction is in scope only when a provider holds the mobile/onsite endorsement for hard drives at the location serving you. This answer walks the endorsement structure in i-SIGMA's specification manual, shows how endorsements print on a real certificate, and lists the four scope checks to run before signing.
