Can I recycle my shredded paper?

The practice of placing your personal shredded documents into a brown paper bag and including that bag in with your recycling is acceptable here in Lake County as the Material Recovery Facility (MRF) that your recyclables are sorted at agrees to accept shredded paper in this form. However, all current day MRF’s are highly automated system that, in their current configurations, do no not effectively recover loose shredded paper. The best assurance for your shredded paper to be recycled is for you to place it in a craft paper bag such as a paper grocery bag. Seal the bag of shredded paper closed by folding, rolling, stapling or taping it and then place it in your recycling cart. Do not put shredded paper in a plastic bag. At the MRF, plastic bags of shredded paper are immediately pulled from the other recyclables and sent to the landfill. Also, please be selective with what you shred. Shred only paper that contains sensitive information such as social security, bank account or credit card numbers. You might also want to consider collecting your documents and bringing them to a shredding event hosted by a local bank or municipal group, or take your documents to local business that provides document shredding for a fee. Paper shredding events and services that collect and shred paper send their shredded paper directly to a paper mill for recycling, it will never go through a MRF that processes traditional non-shredded papers, plastics, bottles and cans. For more information about local businesses in Lake County that offer shredding service please visit the Where Do I Recycle This? search tool on the swalco.org web site.

Show All Answers

1. If a package states that it is recyclable, why can’t I put it in my bin?
2. Can I recycle my shredded paper?
3. Where can I recycle my plastic bags and film?
4. Garden Hoses? Can these be recycled?
5. Can Styrofoam go in the recycling bin?
6. Why can't I recycle hangers?
7. What happens to the recyclables?
8. Does my recycling need to be kept separated, for example, keeping paper separate from glass?