Shred your documents at South Barrington event Aug. 27

On Saturday, Aug. 27, South Barrington will host a Document Destruction Event, sponsored by the Solid Waste Agency of Northern Cook County. The event will be held from 9 a.m. to noon at village hall, 30 S. Barrington Road, South Barrington.

SWANCC sponsors Document Destruction Events to assist residents with recycling outdated or sensitive documents. Residents from South Barrington and other SWANCC communities are eligible to participate, however materials will not be accepted from non-SWANCC residents, businesses, schools or institutions, and IDs will be checked for verification of residency - www.swancc.org/swancc-member-communities.

Acceptable documents can include medical forms, bank statements, personal files and retired tax forms. Residents are allowed to bring up to six file-size boxes or paper bags and are asked to remove any metal clips or metal/plastic binders, and not to put paper in plastic bags before dropping off.

As residents drive up in their vehicles, workers will remove the paper documents and place them into large carts. When full, the carts of paper are emptied into the truck's cross-shredding machine for on-site recycling. At the end of the event, the shredded documents are transported to Groot's recycling facility in Elk Grove Village and baled before being recycled into new paper.

"Every consumer is at risk of identity theft and criminals have gotten very astute at going into garbage cans and recycling bins stealing names, addresses and even bank account numbers", said Mary Allen, SWANCC's Recycling and Education director. "Because of this constant threat, SWANCC wants to assist residents with destroying their personal information, making sure that all shredding is done on site at the host location before being recycled."

For information on SWANCC's Document Destruction Events, or other programs and resources, please contact the agency at (847) 724-9205 or visit SWANCC's website at swancc.org.

The Solid Waste Agency of Northern Cook County is an intergovernmental agency that was established in 1988, and is comprised of 23 communities: Arlington Heights, Barrington, Buffalo Grove, Elk Grove Village, Evanston, Glencoe, Glenview, Hoffman Estates, Inverness, Kenilworth, Lincolnwood, Morton Grove, Mount Prospect, Niles, Palatine, Park Ridge, Prospect Heights, Rolling Meadows, Skokie, South Barrington, Wheeling, Wilmette and Winnetka.

SWANCC provides member residents a variety of waste reduction and recycling services, programs and resource materials. These include collections for special materials that cannot go into the curbside recycling cart or should not go into the garbage due to toxicity or recoverability, such as: computer and electronics, prescription drugs and sharps, compact fluorescent light (CFL) bulbs, mercury thermometers, holiday lights and batteries. For information, visit swancc.org for information.