Martha Marsh Jenkins, the owner of Kitchenworks in University Place, uses Shred-A-Thons to dispose of business documents and other administrative papers that collect while running her store.
“It’s such a nice thing for the town to do. This is what it’s supposed to be like between the town and the people,” Jenkins said. “I know they limit you to five bags, but sometimes I show up with 20 or so.”
Residents and small businesses in Orange County participated in the quarterly Shred-a-Thon on Thursday at University Place to help make proper disposal of confidential documents a community event and to take advantage of a free service offered by the Orange County Solid Waste Management Department.
The Shred-a-Thon was made possible with funding from the Orange County Solid Waste Management with a grant from the Local Government Federal Credit Union and support from Chapel Hill Police, who helped run the event.
Originally the event was set up by the Chapel Hill Police to combat identity theft and to prevent sensitive or confidential documents from getting into the wrong hands. Orange County Solid Waste co-sponsored the event and helped ensure that the shredded paper went directly into the recycling stream.
Blair Pollock, solid waste planner for Orange County, organized the event.
“It’s a two-fer,” Pollock said. “People get their confidential or sensitive documents shredded, and we make sure that the paper is re-used.”
In addition to providing a free service to the public, the Shred-a-Thon gathers information on the recycling habits of different parts of Orange County. As patrons lined up to have their documents shredded, volunteers asked them survey questions, in order to get a better understanding of what parts of Orange County may need more recycling facilities.
“There’s a lot of value in preventing this (paper) from going into the trash stream. It’s much easier to have it go straight into the recycling,” Assistant County Manager Cheryl Young said.
