Free Shredding Event Recycles Tons of Unwanted Paper

Although the event wasn't scheduled to start for another four hours, a woman from Imperial showed up at 6 a.m. Saturday to participate in a free shredding event in Moon.

The procession of cars continued moving through the parking lot at the township municipal building, dropping off boxes upon boxes of unwanted documents over the course of three hours. 

State Sen. Matt Smith and state Rep. Mark Mustio partnered together with Moon Township to offer the shredding service to constituents free of charge. 

"I just think it's great to be able to work together..and this is a great service, particularly in this age of identity theft," said Mustio, R-Moon. "It's been very well received."

As a state representative, Smith, D-Mt. Lebanon, said he helped constituents destroy several tons of sensitive documents and wanted to expand the program to his new Senate district in an effort to bring awareness and assist more constituents.

"There is a demand for proper document shredding," Smith said. "People want to make sure it's properly disposed of."

Anyone dropping off documents had the opportunity to see them shredded inside the truck, provided by The Paper Exchange. The truck had a capacity to hold 33,000 pounds of paper and was at 75 percent two hours into the event. 

"The response is a lot more than I was expecting," said township supervisor John Hertzer, who was joined by supervisor Jim Vitale. 

When all was told, officials estimated well over 300 cars had passed through and more than 10 tons of sensitive documents had been shredded and will be recycled into paper products. 

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