Howard County Shredding Event
Howard County Shredding Event
Items that should be shredded are those that contain the following:
- Account numbers
- Passwords
- PINs
- Signatures
- Social Security numbers
- Date of birth
The general consensus is that just ripping junk mail and old papers into pieces by hand isn’t enough. And all the paper work we talked about last week, once you decide to discard it should be shredded. There are a couple ways to accomplish the task of disposing of important paper work. The first is by purchasing personal shredder. There are two types of shredders; straight cut and cross cut. The straight cut shredder simply cuts papers into strips. It relatively easy to piece together straight cut strips. The preferred is to use a cross cut shredder. The cross cut cuts taper on the diagonal in two directions leaving fine pieces of refuse. The most efficient is a micro cross cut. Many personal shredders will also destroy credit cards and CDs. If your shredder does not have the ability to destroy these items, cut them apart with a pair of sharp scissors. It is best to cut them on the diagonal then cut them again in the other direction.
The second option is to hire a shredding service. This alternative is convenient when dealing with a large amount of paper work such as from an estate or a business. The Howard County Chamber of Commerce maintains a short list of local document management companies. Some will come directly to your home or business and do the shredding on site. Another option is to take the paper work to their site. Howard County sponsors shredding events: in the spring at Green Fest and in the fall at the Meadowbrook Park & Ride. The dates are published on the County’s Public Works website. The county has not set the date for their spring event.
Documents that should be shredded are any that contain birth dates, account numbers, signatures, Social Security numbers, passwords and pin numbers. To protect your privacy you will also want to destroy any paperwork that contains your phone numbers, address, email address and even your name.
Here a list of items that should be shredded that you may not have thought of:
- · Address labels from junk mail and magazines
- · Canceled and voided checks
- · Credit reports and histories
- · Employment records
- · Expired identification cards including driver’s licenses, college IDs, military IDs, employee badges, medical insurance cards, etc.
- · Expired passports and visas
- · Luggage tags
- · Medical and dental records including receipts from the drug store that list prescriptions
- · Receipts with checking account numbers
- · Report cards
- · Résumés
- · School transcripts
- · Travel itineraries
- · Used airline tickets
It is has never been more important to protect our personal information. For more information on how to protect your identity and your information go to the Maryland Attorney General’s website at https://www.oag.state.md.us/idtheft/index.htm