Saving the Planet, One Document at a Time

Livingston resident David Katz is helping New Jersey go green – one piece of paper at a time.  In September, the environmentally-friendly document shredding company, EcoShred, he co-founded will celebrate its first anniversary.

The concept is simple: Katz and his brother, Steven, have created a high-security document shredding system that cuts down on the burning of fossil fuels and idling trucks, both of which are typical of traditional, mobile shredding companies.

Traditional document shredding companies pick-up the secure documents and shred them on site, in a truck. The truck sits in the parking lot of the building, burning gas and creating noise.

EcoShred tailors the disposal system to each client and works with companies all over the state. The EcoShred team arrives in a white truck outfitted with the EcoShred logo. The process is completely secure, from start to finish.

After he loads the documents into the truck – making sure to lock it if more than one trip inside the office building is required – he drives directly to the shredding site in South Plainfield.  The customers sign a release of custody when handing the documents over to Katz.

Once back at EcoShred headquarters, he takes inventory to assure that every document made it safely and signs another paper to verify that nothing was lost. Afterwards, everything goes into the shredder. It comes out the back in the shape of a 10-foot log, with all of the documents commingled.

From there, a forklift from the recycling center – located directly next door, so close that Katz said it is "literally touching" the EcoShred facility – picks-up the paper and disposes of it in the proper recycling bins.

"The ecological aspect is that we come in a truck that runs on a biodiesel blend. It is efficient, clean burning, and runs quietly," said Katz. "The mobile guys sit in the parking lot and burn diesel. I've had clients say that they've chased the guys away because they're sitting outside making all this noise."

To further reduce the toll on the environment, EcoShred purchases carbon off-sets. It is a completely carbon-neutral company.

The brothers developed the EcoShred model after working in the printing industry for more than 20 years. 

"New Jersey is a very competitive place, and there are a lot of people doing shredding," said Katz. "But no one is doing what we're doing."

The main aspect of the business is not the physical shredding. It is security.

"Obviously everybody knows about the problem with identity theft. On a personal basis, you should be shredding anything with your information on it," he continued.

An issue that many do not consider is the possibility of their child's identity being stolen. Katz grew concerned several months ago when his 17-year-old son receieved mail from the AARP, but "it turned out nothing had happened."

Either way, he said, you can never be too careful.

"The crux of the business is protecting your identity," he said. "For companies, the bottom line is that the any business that does business with people needs to keep their information confidential. When they're done with it they need to destroy it."

In addition to paper recycling, EcoShred picks-up and recycles computer equipment and hard drives. Katz estimates that they have helped shred and recycle more than 200,000 pounds of paper and have recycled 25,000 pounds of computers, destroyed hard drives and computer equipment.

"The reason to shred a hard drive," Steven Katz explained, "is because almost anything you delete from a hard drive is recoverable. Don't believe us? Go online and download a recovery tool, and you will find that it can almost all be recovered. The best thing to do is just shred it."