How to shred old personal documents?

How to shred old personal documents without having to take a loan

A while Back, we decided to do some spring cleaning in our home office in Newton MA. After sorting through and organizing our bookshelves, closets, and desks, we ended up with with several hefty binders full of old documents and paper statements that still needed to be shredded. After going through everything and deciding what we needed to keep and what we need to shred, we were left with a large volume of documents that was too much for our “professional shredder” This machine was rated to shred 20 pages at a time but in reality it is 2 pages at a time! Plus the many headaches that come with it such as noise, dust, overheating and wasted time!

After a quick Google search for document shredding service near Acton MA, I found out that most home office stores - like Staples and Office Depot - offer shredding services for a small fee. Staples is closest to us, so that’s where we decided to go. According to their website, any Staples with a Copy & Print Location will offer shredding services. We called ahead and were told that they charge by the pound (79 cents/lb of paper). We went through our two big piles of “to-be-shredded” paper and pulled out anything that didn’t have personal information in it. That was tossed into our regular recycling bin at home. The rest we hauled to Staples but was not confident that our documents would be kept secure and here why:

Staples and other big box stores offer document shredding as another mean to get revenue, it is not their bread and butter and they hire 3 rd party to do the service so document custody is an issue here because who knows how many hands will be involved from the time of document drop off to shredding.

The staff is is not vetted on a regular basis, the criminal background checks are done at the hiring stage and not on a regular basis as required by most professional shredding service companies. Our documents were to be left in a 96-gallon bin that we have no idea how ofter it would be shredded or have access to it, other customers may reach out and get my documents. Who knows!

After a little more research I discovered Neighborhood Parcel of Lowell MA, they offered the security and peace of mind we were looking for, they took full custody of our documents and ensured that the shredding is done at the end of day and provided us with a Notarized certificate of destruction. We paid 89¢ / lbs, a little more than Staples or FedEx Office but we received a professional shredding service that was worth it. Our friends at Shredit and Iron Mountain wanted to charge us $385 for the same shredding job we paid a lot less for.

After weighing our bag at the store, we came in around 100 lbs, which cost us less than $90.00 Not bad for the huge stack that we had. So here how to book the service and ask questions, call them (978)636-0301 or make inquiry here they can send a truck to your house or office in Acton MA to pick up your material for a modest fee.