Hi Kate,
One thing you may need to consider is "dumpster diving."  We are in an 
urban setting and have people going through our dumpster trash pretty 
regularly.  If we approve of disposal of a deaccessioned object through 
destruction- we certainly don't want someone fishing it out of the trash 
for their own use.  Nor would we want the publicity resulting from some 
citizen going to the media with an account of museum employees throwing 
out artifacts in the trash.
When we have been faced with this situation, we photographically document 
the object(s), break it into unusable pieces and personally haul it to a 
landfill that prohibits scavenging.  We write an account of this process 
and file it in the deaccessioned object(s) accession file.  Hope this 
helps.
Sincerely,
David Ryan
Registrar
Colorado Springs Pioneers Museum
www.cspm.org

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