Alternative to secure empty trash?

I've just recently had to rebuild my desktop after a cable failure ruined my back-up hard drive. In the process, I ended up with duplicate user profiles (and all related preferences and data). I moved the duplicates to my trash.

Is there a way to completely remove them now other than secure empty trash? I ask because after 4 days of continuous file deletion in secure empty trash, when it got to the last file, it crashed. When I rebooted, the trash was still full & nothing had been deleted.

(Sure hope that made sense.)