The La Porte County Solid Waste District is now offering free document destruction to county residents year-round at its office, 2857 W. State Road 2.
The District has installed a secure drop box at its office where residents can bring up to two banker boxes full of paper, CDs or zip drives to be securely shredded by Rapid Shred. “We’ll still provide confidential document shredding twice a year at our 6-in-1 collection events, but this will allow residents to access that particular service all the time,” said District Director Clay Turner. The District’s next 6-in-1 collection will be Sept. 26, where tires, appliances, electronics, textiles and household hazardous waste will be collected in addition to on-site document shredding.
The drop box will be available during District business hours, 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. Monday through Friday. Documents will not be shredded on site, but they are stored in a locked container that Rapid Shred will collect and shred confidentially.
Turner said he hopes this service will also help keep shredded paper out of curbside recycling bins. “When shredded paper goes to the sorting facility, it is so small that it is unable to be sorted with the rest of the paper,” he said. “It ends up making a mess and contaminating the glass at the end of the line. This is why we encourage people to use shredding services whenever possible so the paper can actually be recycled separately.”
The District cannot accept larger quantities of shredding or documents from businesses at the drop box. Call (219) 326-0014 for more information.