What Happens to Recycled Shredded Paper?
A single ton of shredded paper can save up to 17 trees, 7000 gallons of water, 84 gallons of oil, 4100 kilowatts of energy, and up to three cubic yards of landfill space.
Shredding paper is important for many businesses in the United States. Paper records like financial documents, receipts, reports, taxes, and customer records contain valuable data. Shredding ensures that proprietary information, personally identifiable information (PII), and other sensitive information is destroyed properly and kept out of the hands of criminals.
However, many businesses with green initiatives want to ensure that their shredded paper isn’t just going into a landfill. For this to happen, you want to work with a professional, NAID certified recycling company like Protec Recycling.
Unfortunately, mixing shredded paper with other recycling contaminates the paper and can make it unretrievable. When you work with Protec Recycling, we assure that confidential information is destroyed and that all your shredded paper is properly bundled for reuse, where it will become paper towels, greeting cards, office paper, magazines, and more.
Here’s how it works.
Shredded Paper Becomes a Resource
When your paper goes to a professional shredder, the shredding is only the initial step in the process. Professional grade shredders make any information on legal documents, medical records, and accounting reports irrecoverable by even the most determined criminals.
After shredding, the paper is compressed into large bails. These bails are sent to a paper mill, which is then put into a vat (pulper) that chops the bails into pieces and adds water and heat, breaking down the paper into its fibers.
Next, the pulp goes through several screens to remove things like staples or rubber bands, and then is cleaned.
Ink is removed, as is glue or other types of adhesives. Then the paper is refined through a compression process to make it ready to become new paper. Sometimes, dyes or other ingredients are added to change the color of the pulp.
The pulp is sprayed onto screens, water is drained, and the pulp bonds into sheets. It is then rolled and heated to remove any remaining water. The sheets are wound into rolls of paper ready to be used to make any number of paper products.
Shredded paper doesn’t have to be wasted — it can all be recycled to keep trees from being cut down to make more paper.
Schedule One-Time or Ongoing Paper Shredding
From one-time purges to regularly scheduled service, Protec helps you regularly (and properly) recycle paper waste. To schedule a pickup, call our office at 205-549-2120 or visit our Contact Us page today.
