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Confidential Document Shredding

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Next Shred Event: Saturday, September 28th, 2024

Where: 540. S Randall Road, St. Charles, IL 60174

Hours: 8am-12 noon

Who may Shred?: Kane Cou​nty residents shredding personal/household documents. This is not a small business service.

NOTE: The 8am-9:30am hour is generally the busiest. Last year, attendees experiences little to no wait time from 10am onward. Please do not arrive early as you create the problem you are trying to avoid - a long line that is not moving!​

What you can bring:

Please sort your papers so that you bring ONLY confidential materials. Even​t staff or volunteers may ask you to leave the line and sort your papers if you bring material that will contaminate the paper being shredded and impact recycling.

Confidential materials include: tax records, medical records, bank & credit card statements, and any document displaying a social security number or financial account number. T​his is information that someone could use to steal your identity and/or money.

Confidential materials DO NOT include: ​cash register receipts, ​magazines, newspapers, empty envelopes, junk mail including bank and credit card offers, mail with your name & address but no other private information, school papers, recipes, books, or photographs. Most of these can go in curbside recycling, except cash register receipts and photographs, which should go in the trash, and books which can go to a Kane County Recycling Center or thrift store.

If it is not paper, we can't take it for shredding. This means no CDs or floppy discs, hard drives, credit cards (cut up with scissors and place in trash)​, plastic sleeves on files, three ring binders, or garbage.​ ​

Amount of material per household:

Quantity limit is the equivalent of 4 banker boxes (12"width x 16"depth x 10"height), or about what will fit comfortably in a normal passenger vehicle without folding seats down. 

Packaging your papers:

Any type of open-top box is preferred (e.g., cardboard box, plastic tub or tote, laundry basket, etc.). We will give you your containers back - please understand that we need to keep the line moving, so we don't have time to flatten cardboard boxes. Please make sure each box weighs no more than 40lbs. Small quantities can come in paper bags. Please no plastic bags.

How to prepare your papers:

PLEASE REMOVE all binder clips, ring clips, three-ring binders, hanging file folders with metal hangers, and any other larger metal pieces.​ These can go airborne when they hit the shredder blades, causing a hazard to event attendees. Staples, paperclips, spiral bindings, manila folders, and file folders without metal are okay to leave.

PLEASE REMOVE all plastic, including page protectors, dividers, file label holders, plastic folders or binders. Envelope windows are okay.

What to expect:

You may need to join a queue when you pull into the event site - our shredding events are often popular! Please pay attention to all event personnel directing traffic and all event signs. Please stay in your vehicle except to use the Pit Stop (northeast corner of the front parking lot).

The line of traffic will move towards the on-site shredding trucks; there are four trucks scheduled for our 2023 events, with each truck holding up to 12,000 pounds of paper. You may be asked to pull into a separate line as you get closer to the trucks. Please follow all event personnel directions.​

As you pull up to the unloading area, please pop your trunk or make sure your doors are unlocked, but do not exit your vehicle. Volunteers will take your documents and load them into totes and put your boxes (if any) back in your car. Please pull forward and follow traffic to the exit as soon as your documents are unloaded. If it is important for you to physically see your documents be shredded, you MUST pull out of line and park until the tote​ for your truck is full and the contents are shredded. You MAY NOT wait in the unloading zone for the batch to be shredded. 

Documents are cross-shredded into confetti-sized pieces​ as they are tipped into the shredding trucks.​

Please check this page before the event to confirm, as things do change​. See alternatives below if you have an urgent need.​

​Alternatives:

If you do not want to wait, you might try calling your bank to see if they have a free yearly shredding event for their customers; they sometimes do. Also some Alderman offices are organizing small scale shred events in their wards; check with yours to see if there are any planned. ​

Otherwise, here is a list of some companies that offer shredding services in the area. These companies serve residents and businesses, and most charge a fee per pound​.

​​Note:
This list is not all inclusive, nor does Kane County promote any of these businesses over ​others. It is simply a list of options for confidential document shredding services, meant to serve as a helpful guide.​​​
Already Shredded Paper?

DO NOT PUT IN CURBSIDE RECYCLING BIN: Paper that has already been shredded is not recyclable in the curbside recycling programs because it creates a major problem at sorting facilities. 

BRING TO ANY KANE COUNTY RECYCLING CENTER: If you have already shredded your documents, you can bring​ bags of shredded paper to the Kane County Recycling Centers. Please bring shredded paper in paper bags (with top rolled and stapled once or twice). Shredded paper will be sent for pulping.

SHRED JUDICIOUSLY: Best practice if you want to shred your own confidential material is to tear off the portion of the page that contains the confidential information and shred that and then recycle the rest of the sheet whole in your curbside recycling program.