Ocean County Announces Residential Document Shredding Schedule

TOMS RIVER, NJ — Ocean County will again offer residents the chance to have their documents shredded at no cost with a series of events around the county beginning on April 10. This year’s program will include 16 stops beginning in Berkeley Township.

Gary Quinn, the director of the Ocean County Board of Commissioners, said in a news release Thursday that last year’s shredding program resulted in the recycling of 94 tons of residential documents. That total is in addition to the amount of paper that goes to the county’s recycling centers.

Quinn, who is the liaison to Ocean County’s recycling program and Solid Waste Management, said the program is a way for residents to guard against identity theft. It allows for paperwork to be shredded rather than just added to recycling collections, which could lead to the stealing of personal information, Quinn said.

Locations, dates and times for the 2021 program are as follows:

• Berkeley Township Recycling Center, 630 Pinewald Keswick Road, 9 a.m. to noon, April 10
• Plumsted Township, 121 Evergreen Road, 9 a.m. to noon, April 17
• Seaside Heights Recycling Center Lot, Bay Blvd. and Sherman Ave., 9 a.m. to noon, April 24
• Jackson Township Municipal Building Rear Lot, 95 West Veterans Highway, 9 a.m. to noon, May 1
• Little Egg Harbor Township, Community Center Lot, 319 W. CalaBreeze Way, 9 a.m. to noon, May 8
• Point Pleasant Borough, High School Lot, 2300 Panther Path (off Beaver Dam Road), 9 a.m. to noon, May 15
• Waretown Municipal Complex Lot, 50 Railroad Ave., 9 a.m. to noon, June 5
• Lakewood Public Works Yard Lot, 1 America Ave., 9 a.m. to noon, June 11 (Fri.)
• Stafford Township, Southern Recycling Center Lot, 379 Haywood Road, 9 a.m. to 1 p.m., June 19
• Toms River, Riverwood Park Lot, 250 Riverwood Drive, 9 a.m. to noon, June 25 (Fri.)
• Manchester Township, Soccer Field Lot, 101 South Colonial Drive, 9 a.m. to noon, Sept. 11
• Island Heights, Parking Lot, 1 Wanamaker Complex, 9 a.m. to noon, Sept. 18
• Brick Township Public Works Yard Lot, 836 Ridge Road, 9 a.m. to noon, Sept. 25
• Beachwood Municipal Complex Lot, 1600 Pinewald Road, 9 a.m. to noon, Oct. 2
• Beach Haven Parking Lot, Taylor Ave, 9 a.m. to noon, Oct. 16
• Lacey Township Recycling Center Lot, 820 Municipal Lane, Lanoka Harbor, 9 a.m. to noon, Oct. 23

Each event will run for its complete allotted amount of time or until the recycling truck is full. Each truck has the capacity to hold 10,000 pounds of paper. The free program is only open to residents and commercial paperwork will not be accepted, Quinn said.

The shred units feature an automatic feeding and dumping system that eliminates human contact with private documents. Residents are limited to five file boxes or 100 pounds of confidential documents per car.

Residents are not limited to what sites they may attend and Quinn said the various events are held around the county to make it convenient for residents. The program is for all paper documents and paper forms; paper clips and staples need not be removed.

Unacceptable items include magazines, books, junk mail, hanging file folders, greeting cards, photos, x-rays, CDs, floppy disks, microfilm, shredded paper and garbage.

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 Township or Building 68 at the Ocean County Northern Recycling Center in Lakewood) for recycling, the news release stated.

Shredded paper cannot be effectively sorted by the County's Recyclable Materials Processing Facility and needs to be recycled separately in order to produce a viable, marketable commodity.

"Ocean County offers a number of programs to make recycling convenient," Quinn said. "Recycling helps to save landfill space and protects the environment. We encourage our citizens to take advantage of the programs offered and to help make a difference in preserving our natural resources."