TOMS RIVER – The free Ocean County Residential Document Shredding Program will get underway on April 10 with its first stop in Berkeley Township.

"This very popular program moves around the county providing a layer of safety from identity theft," said Director of the Ocean County Board of Commissioners Gary Quinn, who serves as liaison to the County's recycling program and Solid Waste Management. "This is an opportunity to rid your home of papers that may include sensitive information that should be shredded rather than just tossed into recycling."

The 2021 event includes 16 locations and will be serviced by IDSAutoshred of Toms River.

"Last year we recycled 94 tons of residential documents with this program," Quinn said. "That is in addition to all the paper that goes to our recycling centers."

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 noon, 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 shredding event will run the complete schedule or until the truck is full. The truck has a capacity to hold 10,000 pounds of paper.

The program is free to residents only and commercial documents will not be accepted at the collection sites.

"I encourage our residents to attend any of the sites available during this year's program," Quinn said. "You are not limited to which sites you can attend. We hold it across the County to make certain it's convenient for our residents."

While registration is not required, he noted the program is very popular and often sites fill up fast.
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.

During the event residents must wear face coverings and stay in vehicles at all times. Materials should be in the trunk, cargo area or truck bed, easily accessible to the staff who will remove it from your vehicle.

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.

For residents who prefer to shred documents at home, Ocean County offers drop-off boxes at both County recycling centers for shredded office paper.

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. Shredded paper cannot be effectively sorted by the County's Recyclable Materials Processing Facility and therefore 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."