Letter: What to Do with Your Shredded Paper Given It’s Excluded from Single Stream Recycling

Letter to the Editor submitted by Joanne Clark, Paper Shredding Event Coordinator

The town website simply says, “Bagged shreds can be deposited in a special container at Holly Hill.”

Recent changes to single stream recycling regulations prohibit the inclusion of paper shreds with recycling effective July 1, 2018. All shreds created at home or in an office must now be delivered to Holly Hill and placed in the container dedicated to paper shreds (which will be recycled). Or else shreds would presumably go into the trash? That would be unfortunate.

Another good option if you prefer not to bring your shreds to Holly Hill: Stop shredding single pages at home. Save your sensitive documents for the annual paper shredding day – usually scheduled in late April. The 2019 Shredding Day is scheduled for April 27th. Details will be available in early spring.

Our first shredding event was in April 2012 when nearly 5 tons of paper was shredded in 4 hours. Since then the tonnage has doubled. Ten tons of paper is equal to about 163 trees.

Saving trees and protecting your personal information at the same time is a win-win for all.

Whether you choose to shred your own or save your paper for shredding day, please keep paper out of the trash.

Shredding day is organized by volunteers from Greenwich Green & Clean and Greenwich Recycling Advisory Board. The event continues to be sponsored by Santaguida Sanitation and The First Bank of Greenwich.

Respectfully submitted,
Joanne Clark
Shredding Event Coordinator

see also:

PHOTOS, VIDEO: A Close-Up Look at City Carting’s Single Steam Recycling

The Future is Not Plastic in Greenwich. Plastic Bag Ban with Zero Fee Wins in RTM Vote (March 2018)

Sesto Delves into Details of Upcoming Plastic Bag Ban in Greenwich