What Shredding Can Do for the Environment
Shredding offers more than security – it helps our planet.
Did you know that regularly shredding paper is good for the environment? Paper is one of the most used materials in circulation. By regularly shredding your documents as opposed to throwing them in the trash, not only is your paper waste is rendered unusable, it can be recycled into other products.
One of the primary reasons we recycle is to conserve resources, and one of our largest resources are trees. Trees make the paper we use for so many products, from office paper to cardboard boxes to magazines. We live in a society that consumes paper faster than we can grow trees. Recycling paper creates meaningful environmental savings all around.
Recycling one ton of office paper saves 17 trees, 7,000 gallons of water, 463 gallons of oil, and 3 cubic yards of landfill space. What’s more, by recycling shredding documents there is 73% less air pollution than if it was made from raw materials, and 30-50% less energy is used from using recycled paper than making paper directly from trees.
The benefits to the environment are obvious. So what can your old documents make instead of collecting in a landfill? Unwanted mail, shoe boxes, cereal boxes, and pasta boxes can be recycled into paper backing on roofing shingles or new paperboard. Shredded office paper can be recycled into many products, including toilet paper and paper towels.
In addition to being environmentally friendly, shredding is secure.
If your organization is using an office shredder instead of a certified shredding service, chances are that at least one of your employees is dumping shredded paper in the trash instead of the recycling bin. That means your organization is not recycling all the paper they should, and they’re also exposing confidential information to dumpster divers who can sift through your trash, and then piece together strips of company information for their own personal gain.
Shredding gives you the peace of mind that comes with knowing your sensitive paper is properly destroyed and that you’re doing your part to recycle those materials, making the environment stronger and the world a better place.
Need to make a plan to shred and recycle your old documents? We have a solution for that.
Related Articles:
- 5 Ways to Reduce Your Carbon Footprint
- Paper Recycling Stats in the U.S.
- Did You Know That Paper Shredding Is Environmentally Friendly?
- Don’t Forget to Shred During Spring Cleaning!
Service Areas: Florida Shredding; Orlando Shredding; Tampa Shredding; Naples Shredding; New York Shredding; Westchester Shredding; Long Island Shredding and more!