Celebrate Earth Day with Document Shredding

What better way to celebrate Earth Day than to check your knowledge about the environment and shredding? Below is a list of eight quiz questions. You decide which of these questions are true and which are false, and just so we don’t keep you in suspense, you can check your answers in the section that follows.

Quiz Time! (True or False)

1. Earth Day originated in the US.
2. Heavy-duty home/office paper shredders are just as good as a shredding company’s industrial shredder.
3. If I shred my own documents at home or at the office, I can just put the shredded material out with the recycling.
4. All shredding companies will recycle 100% of your shredded paper.
5. Recycling your paper helps save trees.
6. Because paper decomposes quickly, there’s no harm in sending it to the landfill.
7. Paper shredding companies only work with large businesses.
8. It’s beneficial to use a NAID AAA Certified shredding company.

Check Your Answers

1. True. US Senator Gaylord Nelson founded Earth Day after witnessing a massive oil spill that leaked millions of gallons of oil off the coast of Santa Barbara in 1969. In 1970, April 22nd was selected as Earth Day because it fell between most students’ spring break and final exams and Sen. Nelson wanted to encourage young people specifically to participate. But Earth Day became recognized worldwide by 1990 because participation is for everyone!
2. False. Industrial shredders can chew up thousands of pounds of paper every hour and even shred paperclips, binder clips, rubber bands, staples, and hanging folders without even slowing down, while you would need to remove all of these items in advance to use a home/office shredder. When you use the services of a professional shredding company, you save time and resources that would be wasted on slowly feeding a few sheets of paper at a time, still dealing with paper jams, emptying the receptacle frequently, and breakdowns. In the long run, it is more affordable to use the services of a reputable shredding company to destroy your documents.
3. Likely False. Many recycling programs find it impossible to recycle shredded material deposited into residential recycling bins because of cross contamination, and ask residents and businesses not to place shredded paper in the recycling bin. Because the paper fibers are shortened when shredded, it becomes unusable in the multi-stream recycling process and ends up in the landfill anyway. Secondly, you shouldn’t be putting your shredded documents with private information out where the public is allowed to look through and take it. Let the professionals shred and recycle it in a single-stream paper recycling process so 100% of your shredded paper becomes useful again.
4. False. Businesses in the US are not obligated to recycle. Unless you find a shredding company that is committed to sending 100% of its shredded paper to a recycler, your paper is going to be disposed of in the landfill with all other unrecycled materials. Add recycling to the checklist when seeking a shredding company.
5. True. For every ton of paper that is recycled, 17 trees are saved. That’s a great thing because, as of 2020, worldwide forest cover has shrunk an average of 4.7 million hectares each year. This is tragic because trees are vital to our health and environment. They support large and delicate ecosystems. For the past five years, 10 million hectares of trees were replaced by only 5 million individual replanted trees. Unfortunately, planting a tree still takes 10-20 years for it to grow large enough to have a positive effect on the environment. Protect our forests by working with a shredding company that recycles your shredded paper.
6. False. Paper in landfill sites pollutes and harms the environment. Methane, a greenhouse gas, is released through the process of paper biodegrading. Would you believe that recycling jobs pay better than landfill and waste incineration jobs? If your paper is recycled, it can be used to create quality manufactured products like cardboard boxes, copy paper, coffee filters, catalogs and journals, paper towels, toilet paper, and so much more. It is better to use recycled paper pulp than to produce new paper to manufacture these consumer products.
7. False. Look for a shredding company that provides commercial shredding for businesses of all sizes as well as residential shredding. Having a local provider who offers shredding to all types of customers is great news for anyone that needs to discard any paper that contains any amount of personal information.
8. True. A NAID AAA Certified company complies with all known data protection laws and is held accountable through scheduled and surprise audits of key aspects of their shredding operation, such as background checks and chain of custody. You can be confident that a NAID AAA Certified company will protect your sensitive documents from the time they receive them until they are destroyed and recycled.

Bonus Question #9

What NAID AAA Certified shredding company recycles their shredded paper in East Tennessee? ShredPro Secure provides both on-site mobile shredding and drop-off shredding services for businesses and residents, and last year, we recycled 2,300,000 pounds of paper. If you want us to securely shred and recycle your paper, call us at 865-986-5444 or complete the form on this page. One of our friendly team members will be happy to help you.