I recently had a chance to use ProShred Security to shred a bunch of old paper. Bob Ferguson, the genial local franchisee in Clearwater, FL, took time to talk about their quality control, recycling and trends in the industry.
Their trucks drive up to a customer location, take documents in sealed boxes (so their staff don’t touch your documents), allow you to watch the shredding on a video, and then issue you a certificate of destruction. Many of the trucks are from AXO and the high-end versions can shred 9,000 lbs an hour! (a ream of 500 pages of normal copy paper weighs 5 lbs. Home shredders, even the better ones, need time to cool down between uses and so can barely shred 10-20 lbs an hour).
The shredded paper is then handed over for recycling - regular customers get a TreeSaver Environmental Certificate indicating the total number of mature trees they saved during the year through the recycling process.Recycling 2,000 lbs. of paper “ saves 17 mature trees, 7 thousand US gallons (26 m3) of water, 3 cubic yards (2.3 m3) of landfill space, 2 barrels of oil (84 US gal or 320 l), and 4,100 kilowatt-hours (15 GJ) of electricity — enough energy to power the average American home for six months.”
Is business slowing down as people go more digital? Bob chuckles. May be in the future when everyone just gets electronic statements (see my post here on what different financial institutions and utilities are offering in digital format) and medical records are finally electronic etc. Today, the cost of digitizing archived paper is still too expensive, so businesses continue to store till required archival time periods expire, then shred as soon as convenient. Enough to keep those trucks moving and the franchise expanding
I drove to his facility with about 125 lbs. of paper. Office Depot wanted to weigh everything then charge 99c a lb. Bob looked at the 3 containers I brought them in and charged me $ 15 each, so a total of $ 45 – like I said he is genial :).
If I had requested the mobile service he has a minimum charge of $ 125. A bargain for the convenience, speed and security.
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