Shred it and forget it, preventing identity theft

MONTROSE — Why bring old documents to a central location for at-site shredding? Two words: sheer volume.

What Montrose residents couldn’t manage destroying with their home-shredders they brought to one of two Alpine Bank locations Saturday for the first-ever, free, “Shred it and Forget it” event, hosted by the bank and Colorado Document Security.

A truck equipped with a shredder handled a 200-pound, paper bin at a time. In a period of less than two hours, roughly 3,000 pounds of paper were destroyed and prepared for recycling, said Scott Fasken, of Colorado Document Security.

“It’s a great opportunity for people to get rid of confidential records in a secure and proper manner,” Fasken said.

About 25 cars lined up for the event by 8 a.m., and continued coming the rest of the day, said Carolee Hawkins, Alpine Bank community relations.

Resident Margaret Lanam was among those who came to the bank’s parking lot armed with two big boxes of old documents.

“I kept accumulating and accumulating (paper) ‘til I got so much, my letter shredder couldn’t handle it,” said Lanam, who is also enrolled in an identify theft program. “You can never be too careful,” she said.

Hawkins said people can spend hours shredding documents at home one by one.

“We just figured this would be a great way for people who have a lot of stuff, especially for the older generations, who have tax documents from the ’30s and ’40s lined up in their basement,” she said. “They just don’t know what to do with it.”

The idea for the event came from one of the bank’s customers, said Alpine Bank Regional President Tom Kenning. The customer was visiting family in Ohio, where a bank held a similar event. A little research later, Alpine Bank decided to hold the event annually. The event supports the company’s environmental stance by recycling the documents, and also raises awareness about identity theft.

“People are probably not as aware as they should be,” Kenning said. “Hopefully, we can help with that (awareness) through this event.”

Fasken, who was elected to the National Association for Information Destruction board,  started Colorado Document Security during the Enron debacle. He’d watched a program on television about the corporation when he noticed a shredding truck in the background. Today, Fasken’s business destroys documents for businesses that include retail chains, small businesses and utility companies.

Commented Fasken, “The whole idea is not shredding, it’s security.”

Contact Lisa Huynh at lisah@montrosepress.com