OCEAN COUNTY – The Ocean County Residential Document Shredding Program will kick off on March 29 in Lakewood.
The program is free to Ocean County residents only and commercial documents will not be accepted at the collection sites.
“In 2022, 90 tons of paper were recycled – all of which was collected at the County’s Residential Document Shredding sites. You are not limited to which site you have to attend, so we encourage residents to go to whichever is more convenient for them,” Ocean County Commissioner Barbara Jo Crea said.
While registration is not required, she noted the program is very popular and often sites fill up fast. Residents are limited to four file boxes or clear bags, or 100 pounds of confidential documents per car.
The shred units feature an automatic feeding and dumping system that eliminates human contact with private documents. Paper must be in a manageable container; paper clips and staples do not need to be removed.
Residents are requested to stay in their vehicles at all times, and to have the materials to be shredded in the trunk, cargo area, or truck bed of their vehicle to make it easily accessible to the staff who will remove them.
Items that are not acceptable include magazines, books, junk mail, hanging file folders, greeting cards, photos, x-rays, CDs, floppy disks, microfilm, shredded paper and garbage. In addition, moldy or wet paper and plastic bags should not be included in the shredding.
Each shredding event runs from 9 a.m. to noon or until the trucks are full. Each truck has a capacity to hold five to seven tons of paper and all documents are destroyed confidentially on site.
The dates and locations for the 2023 schedule are:
March 29 – Lakewood, Public Works Yard, 1 America Avenue
April 1 – Berkeley, Recycling Center Lot, 630 Pinewald Keswick Road
April 15 – Seaside Heights, Recycling Center Lot, Bay Boulevard and Sherman Avenue
April 29 – Stafford, Ocean County Southern Recycling Center, 279 Haywood Road
May 13 – Waretown, Municipal Complex Lot, 50 Railroad Avenue
May 19 – Toms River, Riverwood Parking Lot, 250 Riverwood Drive
June 3 – Jackson, Municipal Building Rear Lot, 95 West Veterans Highway
June 17 – Little Egg Harbor, Community Center Lot, 319 West Cala Breeze Way
June 24 – Point Pleasant Borough High School Lot, 2300 Panther Path
Sept. 9 – Manchester, Soccer Field, 101 South Colonial Drive
Sept. 16 – Lacey, Recycling Center Lot, 820 Municipal Lane
Sept. 23 – Barnegat, Recycling Center Lot, 5 Lippincott Avenue
Oct. 14 – Beach Haven, Parking Lot, Taylor Avenue
Oct. 21 – Brick, Public Works Yard, 836 Ridge Road
Oct. 28 – Beachwood, Municipal Complex Lot, 1600 Pinewald Road
Shredded Paper
Shredded office paper should not be placed with curbside recyclables, and should instead be brought to the drop-off boxes (near Building 105 at the Ocean County Southern Recycling Center in Stafford or Building 68 at the Ocean County Northern Recycling Center in Lakewood) for recycling.
As shredded paper cannot be effectively sorted by Ocean County’s Recyclable Materials Processing Facility, it needs to be recycled separately in order to produce a viable, marketable commodity.
The contractor for this year’s program is Toms River based IDSAutoshred.
For more information, visit co.ocean.nj.us/recycle.
