What if you could instantly get rid of those 40 cases of paper that have been clogging up your filing cabinets? What if you could dispose of these old files safely, without having to worry about dumpster divers picking out sensitive information or looking for ways to steal your customers' identities? What if, at the same time, you could save 7.2 full grown trees, 3000 gallons of water and keep 30 pounds of pollution out of the air? There's a business located in Lincoln Square that can help you do all of these things—without having to haul boxes and boxes of paper to a recycling center. Instead, Secure Eco Shred will come to you to safely destroy and recycle those materials you've been wanting to get rid of but haven't had the time.
Co-owned by Kristina Kalapos, Diane Rogers and Sharon Mayberry, the Lincoln Square office of Secure Eco Shred opened in 2004 to serve customers all over the Chicago area in need of safe, dependable document destruction. Whether you need to schedule a regular time to purge or a one time shred of 300 pounds of paper or more, they will be glad to come to your location with one of their high-tech shredding trucks to do the job. If you're planning a big paper purge, Secure Eco Shred will supply you with special labels to help you through the sorting process. Just stick them on whatever you want disposed of and a Secure Eco Shred representative will pick up only the boxes that are marked for removal. Those will be carried down to the truck and shredded right then and there. "A lot of people do their own shredding, but find out how cumbersome it is," explains co-owner Sharon Mayberry. "Once they hire us, they are amazed at how cost effective it is for us to come onsite and shred a large amount of their paper in a very short time." Customers seem to love the service so much that the Secure Eco Shred representatives get a warm welcome whenever they arrive. "Some places get really excited when we come for a pick up," says Sharon. "They say, 'Awesome! The shredders are here!'" Secure Eco Shred got its warmest reception yet when its trucks shredded about 20,000 pounds of Chicago Sun-Times newspapers to make ticker tape for the Chicago White Sox World Series parade this month.
If you generate more paper that needs to be shredded than you know what to do with, the company will be glad to bring out complimentary locked consoles where your employees can temporarily discard sensitive documents until the trucks arrive for their routine pick up. "We provide consoles that are locked with a dead bolt, so they're completely secure," describes co-owner Diane Rogers. "Each console has a nylon bag inside that catches all the paper you throw in. We don't charge anything for the containers, you just pay for whatever we come and shred." You don't even have to worry about removing paper clips, staples or binder clips. Just toss it in and Secure Eco Shred will take care of them for you. In the age of the "paperless office," many customers now face the challenge of how to get rid of the millions of sensitive computer files that are stored on disks of all kinds. But Secure Eco Shred is up to the task. Its state of the art shredder trucks can even destroy old floppy disks, CDs, microfiche, X rays and even computer hard drives—metal and all. "We shred a lot of floppies and CDs now, but a lot of people don't know that we can do hard drives yet," says Diane. Of course, these are disposed of safely and separately from the paper waste.
 Prices are volume based: the more you shred, the more the price decreases per pound. Typical Secure Eco Shred clients include health care services, financial services, banks, human resources departments, insurance companies, attorneys and other businesses that handle sensitive information. But you don't have to be a huge business to take advantage of Secure Eco Shred's services. "We have neighborhood people walk into our storefront all the time with grocery bags full of paper, asking if we can shred it for them," says Diane. If one of the trucks is here, we'll shred it for them right away for 50 cents a pound. Or we will take care of it later when the trucks are back."
Secure Eco Shred's amazing efficiency is partly due to its high-tech trucks, which are essentially shredding factories on wheels. The company also has a secure van that it uses for smaller pick ups that are brought to the Secure Eco Shred office to be shredded. You can tell how detail-oriented the company is when you realize that it even painted its name on the roof of the truck. "That's so someone who is in an office on a high floor can look out the window and see who we are," says Diane.
When the truck arrives at a customer's location, a uniformed representative goes into the office to collect the consoles or boxes of material that the customer needs shredded. It takes a lot to become a Secure Eco Shred Customer Security Representative. Training is extensive. All Customer Security Representatives also undergo extensive background checks with the Illinois State Police to examine their records for their driving history and any criminal history. Secure Eco Shred is so committed to the security of customer materials that they regularly evaluate their Customer Security Representatives. "We check on our Customer Security Representatives periodically, from afar," says Diane. "We'll keep an eye on them when they don't know we're there to make sure they are operating according to procedure."
The customer signs a release form that turns over responsibility for the materials to Secure Eco Shred and receives a certificate of destruction. Then the Customer Security Representative brings the material to the truck and feeds it into a large chute into the onboard shredder. The materials are never, ever left unattended and the truck is padlocked so that no one can access even the shredded papers. On the other side of the chute, the paper is sliced up and compacted. When the truck arrives at the recycling plant, it opens up like a dump truck. Paper fragments slide right out because of the slick silicone-based paint used to cover the inside of the truck. It's an extremely efficient process that can shred up to 3000 pounds of paper in just an hour. There's even a window into the trailer where customers can watch their material as it's being shredded into tiny unrecognizable bits. "Some people are really interested in seeing in person that all of their material is shredded," says Diane. "We did some shredding for a couple that was moving out of their home of many years, and the husband wanted to see with his own eyes that all the paper was shredded."
Security is probably the hottest issue when it comes to document destruction. Industries such as financial services, health care and banking now face new confidentiality laws and regulations designed to protect customer privacy that actually require them to shred their documents in an approved manner. Identity theft is skyrocketing at an alarming rate, which is forcing businesses to reconsider the safety of their customer data. Secure Eco Shred representatives are trained to never leave material unattended that is not secured—inside the truck and padlocked shut. "We teach our Customer Security Representatives to treat every piece of a customer's paper as though it were a $500 bill," says Sharon. "No material is ever left in the truck," says Diane. "Even one shred of material would be a problem." At the end of the night, the trucks are thoroughly cleaned and then inspected again the next morning. Kristina, Diane and Sharon travel to trade shows all over, preaching the benefits of safe document destruction. At one networking event, they met someone who said his solution was to burn his files. "We explained to him that you can still retrieve information from burned paper," says Diane.
 The expanding Secure Eco Shred franchise started in Farmington, MI and now has offices in Chicago, Connecticut and Grand Rapids, MI. Kristina's brother was a founding partner of the original location. Before joining with Sharon and Diane to open the Chicago office, Kristina was an insurance broker, so she understood the importance of document destruction and saw its potential. Diane worked in the retail world for many years and was growing tired of the long hours, while Sharon had been the general manager of a metal plating company for 27 years. From the start, they were dedicated to building a strong business. They attended classes at the Women's Business Development Center, where they wrote a business plan and took the steps to get certified as an official women owned business, known as a Women Business Enterprise (WBE). Kristina, Diane and Sharon are all involved with every aspect of the business, whether it's sales calls, traveling to trade shows or even going out on shredding runs. Their hard work was recognized by the National Association of Women Business Owners, which gave Secure Eco Shred of Chicago the 2005 New Venture Award for its creativity, willingness to take risks, marketing strategy and business acumen.
What's special about using Secure Eco Shred is that your paper lives on and is reused in another form to help save the environment. After it leaves your location, the shredded paper is taken away to a recycling facility for processing, where it eventually is sent to a mill that will reuse it to make items like tissues, toilet paper and paper towel. Large items like file boxes are kept and recycled separately from the paper. This is what the company calls its "EcoVision": its promise to serve its customers and save the environment by reusing materials responsibly. "Every year we give our customers a certificate that shows them how many trees they have saved by shredding their material with us," says Sharon. "We all care about the earth here. I'm personally into the ecology of it. It's refreshing to work in an environment that is helping make things better."
Outreach is also a big part of Secure Eco Shred's commitment to the community. The company frequently meets with organizations and groups to educate them about the dangers of identity theft and how they can protect themselves and their customers. On Earth Day, Secure Eco Shred holds a shredding event in conjunction with Whole Foods Market to raise awareness of the benefits of recycling. For the neighbors and business owners in Lincoln Square, Secure Eco Shred hosted a day of free shredding in the municipal lot beside Bad Dog Tavern earlier this year. And this month, the truck made an appearance in the DeVry parking lot for another shredding event. Secure Eco Shred frequently co-sponsors events with businesses to educate their customers about identity theft. They'll spend the day with both employees and customers and will offer their onsite shredding services.
With all of these issues to consider, why not take care of multiple concerns at once: your liability, your customers' privacy, purging old papers—all while helping keep the environment cleaner? If you're interested in using Secure Eco Shred's services, just give them a call at 773.539.3819 to make arrangements. For greatest efficiency, Secure Eco Shred trucks service certain geographic areas of the city and suburbs on certain days. Someone will be glad to set up a scheduled visit for you when the trucks are in your part of town. If you have a small amount to shred, you can always walk it in during office hours and they will shred it for you. "We are unusual in that the other three Secure Eco Shred locations don't have a shredding storefront like we do," says Sharon. "We want the neighborhood people and the chamber people to know that we're here and they don't have to shred things on their own."
Secure EcoShred
2742 West Montrose Avenue
Chicago, IL 60618
773.539.3819
www.secureecoshred.com
Hours:
Monday through Friday - 8:30am to 5:00pm
Shredding by appointment
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