With the overwhelming success of the shred-a-thon held at the Middletown Police Department on May 5th, Attorney General Kilmartin has scheduled a second free shred-a-thon event at the Middletown Senior Center on Thursday, May 19th, from 1:00 p.m. to 3:00 p.m., or until capacity.
The event will take place in the rear parking lot of the Middletown Senior Center, located at 650 Green End Avenue. The shred-a-thons are free and open to the public. All consumers are invited to drop off up to two boxes or paper shopping bags of documents for shredding.
The previous shred-a-thon held at the Middletown Police Station, which was scheduled from 1:00 p.m. to 3:00 p.m., ended early because the truck was filled to capacity after just over one hour of the event.
"We never anticipated such a big turnout," said Martha Crippen, Director of the Consumer Protection Unit at the Office of Attorney General. "In a way, we were a victim of our own success. We continually educate consumers to shred documents that may contain person identifying information versus throwing it in the trash where identity thieves can access the information. People are listening. Unfortunately, that resulted in more people than we expected showing up to the shred-a-thon.
"We never want to turn people away, and we want to make sure those folks have the opportunity to get rid of those documents in a secure manner. We are thrilled to partner with the Middletown Senior Center to host the event this coming Thursday," Crippen added.
How it works:
The secure shredding service is provided by Doc Shredding Corp. Consumers can load their documents on the truck and receive a "certificate of destruction" from Doc Shredding, which certifies that all documents collected will be handled and destroyed with the highest degree of security. Materials are transported back to Doc Shredding Corp.'s secure facility, shredded to a fine confetti and baled on a large plant-based shredder. This offers the same level of security and confidentiality as mobile shredding, but is a "greener" option than having a diesel truck running continuously. The shredded documents are then recycled, thereby keeping tons of material out of Rhode Island landfills.
Doc Shredding Corp is a National Association for Information Destruction (NAID) Certified shredding company. They operate a high capacity NAID "AAA" Certified shredding facility, equipped with full access control and alarm system. Doc Shredding Corp is committed to the safety and security of all sensitive information paper and electronic. Strict NAID "AAA" Certified procedural and processing guidelines ensures NO UNAUTHORIZED ACCESS to classified information prior to destruction.
Attorney General Peter Kilmartin started hosting the free shred-a-thon events 2011 in an effort to help consumers protect against identity theft. Each year, the office has partnered with Doc Shredding Corporation. It is through the generosity of this company that the Office is able to host these events at no cost to the consumer. The shred-a-thons have proven to be very popular, and each year the Office has increased the number of locations across the state.
A few years ago, the Office switched from using an onsite shredding truck to a box truck that takes the documents back to Doc Shredding's warehouse to shred for several reasons, specifically because the box truck is more environmentally friendly than the onsite shredding truck, and it has greater capacity in terms of the amount of material that can be collected from consumers.