Township Sets Oct. 9 For Free Document Shredding

Residents now have an opportunity to gather up old bills, statements, tax documents and other materials that might result in identity theft if improperly discarded, and bring them to a free Community Shred Day scheduled for Saturday, Oct. 9, from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m.

The joint operation for residents of Bernards Township and Bernardsville is being funded by Somerset County. Participants may bring personal documents to the Bernards Township Engineering Services Building, 277 S. Maple Ave., Basking Ridge. The event will be held rain or shine.

Documents will be loaded into a commercial truck to be privately and properly shredded by trained, licensed and bonded document-destruction specialists.  Residents may bring documents in boxes, bags or any other type of containers. Staples and paperclips do not need to be removed from documents to be shredded. 

The papers will be dumped into the shredder, and container will be returned to the resident. Participants may stay and watch the process if they wish.

Mayor Scott Spitzer said this week he had received positive feedback from residents when the township sponsored its first community shred day last October. That operation reportedly collected more than nine tons of personal papers

"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to help our residents protect themselves and address this problem by the free and safe destruction of sensitive, but out of date documents like old tax returns, bank and brokerage statements, medical records and other documents with personal information," Spitzer said.

Township residents were able to bring their documents to another shredding operation held last spring in Bernardsville. By partnering with the neighboring municipality, through an initiative arranged by the county, the residents of both towns were given to opportunities to safely dispose of their records, Bernardsville Mayor Lee Honecker said.

A 2005 Federal Trade Commission survey released in Nov. 2007 indicated that 8.3 million Americans had been victims of identity theft in 2005, according to information from Bernards Township.

The Better Business Bureau and Javelin Strategy & Research said in 2007 that victims of identity theft totaled more than 30 million people, representing $49.3 billion in losses and $5,720 per victim, according to the township.

For more information, contact the Bernards Township Municipal Clerk Denise Szabo at dszabo@bernards.org or call 908-204-3001; Bernardsville Borough Clerk Sandra Jones at sjones@bernardsvilleboro.org or call 908-766-3000, ext. 141.