Community Shred Day in Basking Ridge Open to All Somerset Hills Residents

After the continuing success of local "shred days" — at which residents may bring their personal and professional documents for industrial shredding with the goal of protecting privacy and preventing identity theft — another Community Shred day is scheduled for 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. on Saturday, Oct. 8 in Basking Ridge.

The shredding operation, to be conducted at the Bernards Township Engineering Services Building at 277 S. Maple Ave. in Basking Ridge, is open to residents of all Somerset Hills towns, including Bernards, Bernardsville, Bedminster, Far Hills and Peapack-Gladstone.

The township initially launched Community Shred Day a few years ago to serve residents in Basking Ridge.

However, Somerset County then picked up the cost and organization of additional shredding operations to serve clusters of communities around the county. Following the collection of more than 100,000 pounds of paper documents collected as part of of last year’s municipal shred days, the Somerset County Consumer Protection Group and the County Records Management Group announced those departments would sponsor additional municipal shred days for 2011.

The event will be held rain or shine. The paper documents will be commercially shredded safely, privately and properly by trained, licensed and bonded document-destruction specialists, according to information from the township and Somerset County.

Residents from the Somerset Hills towns may bring documents in whatever type of container they wish. Staples and paperclips do not need to be removed. Papers to be shredded will be dumped, and the container will be returned to the resident. Participants may stay and watch the process if they wish, according to the township.

"Identity theft is a growing problem to our personal security. We want to help our residents protect themselves and address this problem by the free and safe destruction of sensitive, but out of date documents like old tax returns, bank and brokerage statements, medical records and other documents with personal information," said Bernards Township Mayor John Malay.

For further information, contact the Bernards Township Municipal Clerk at dszabo@bernards.org or 908-204-3001.