In 2006, Westchester County unveiled its Mobile Shredder. Shredding personal documents serves a double purpose-- to recycle paper as well as protect sensitive information against identity thet -- the fasted growing crime in the nation.
Papers from businesses, schools, institutions or commercial enterprises will not be accepted. County staff will inspect all paper to be shredded and will reject any paper identified as commercial or institutional.
Since its unveiling, thousands of residents have brought their confidential papers to be shredded and hundreds of tons of paper have been recycled. You can watch the
Mobile Shredder in action.
The county's Mobile Shredder will be at all
Household Recycling Days. In addition, it is available at Mobile Shredder events for local communities. Check out the
2009 recycling schedule to see when the truck will be in a location convenient to you. Contact your local municipality if you would like to have the Mobile Shredder come to your neighborhood. Municipal departments and non-profit organizations who want to schedule a ‘shred-a-thon’ should call 211, the county’s Recycling Office.
Besides residential use, county departments and local municipalities use the Mobile Shredder to free up valuable inventory space often occupied by outdated documents, while at the same time, it ensures that confidentiality is preserved. Several municipalities had been paying private shredding companies to dispose of their documents, but the county will now be providing this service to them free of charge.
As part of the county’s commitment to sharing services and developing strategies to consolidate and help reduce costs, the use of the Mobile Shredder is being offered to all Westchester public schools. As schools are often vast repositories of personal information about students and their families, the Mobile Shredder serves as an important tool in the proper and complete disposal of these sensitive documents.
If you would like to schedule the Mobile Shredder for your school, contact Peter Costa at Westchester County’s Department of Environmental Facilities by e-mail at ppc9@westchestergov.com.
Remember, it's best to shred documents you're no longer using, like old documents and bills, that bear personal identifying information such as name, address, phone number, credit card number or social security number. Such documents should be shredded before they are thrown out for recycling. Some examples are:
- junk mail
- old utility bills
- driver licenses
- expired credit cards and receipts
- old tax returns or any other documents containing your name, address and other identifying information
- pre-approved credit card applications
As this service is gaining in popularity, residents should be prepared to wait as lines are sometimes long. However, the wait doesn't have to be that long. Come prepared. This means you've removed all metal clips, fasteners, binders, folders and hard covers and placed the papers loosely in a box. Hard covers – cardboard or plastic covers on items such as ledger books, marble composition books and hard-cover books – cannot be shredded and will be turned away. Residents must rip pages out from hard cover books for shredding and throw the covers in their regular household trash. Up to four boxes of papers are allowed for shredding.
For more information about identity theft, call the Dept. of Consumer Protection (914) 995-2155. For questions about recycling, call 211, the Recycling HelpLine.
