Free Upcoming Electronics Recycling and Document Shredding Days

Got an old computer cluttering up your home office? Think it’s time to destroy the piles of top secret documents you have lying around?

You can do both this coming Saturday at the Niles Public Services Department building, 6849 W. Touhy Ave., Niles, when the Solid Waste Agency of Northern Cook County (SWANCC ) will recycle your electronics and shred your sensitive documents for free. Another recycling event will be held at Evanston Township High School on July 14.

From 9 a.m. to noon on both upcoming dates, Evanstonians and residents from 22 other member suburbs can bring computers, game consoles, TVs, printers, scanners, cell phones, DVD and VHS players, fax machines and more for recycling at no cost. Due to the State of Illinois’ Electronics Products Recycling and Reuse Acts, which went into effect at the beginning of this year, it is now illegal for residents to simply dispose of many of these items in the trash.

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“SWANCC’s goal is to provide convenient and environmentally-sound programs to assist residents with recycling materials, which keeps potentially harmful as well as recoverable materials from going to a landfill,” said Mary Allen, SWANCC Recycling and Education Director, in a statement.

Theses events will also double as an opportunity to shred old bank statements, tax forms, medical record and any other sensitive documents.

Both document shredding and electronic recycling will be handled in a way to keep private information safe. SWANCC contracts with Supply-Chain Services, Inc. to erase and process computer hard drives, and Accurate Document Destruction, a division of Groot Industries, will perform all document destruction on-site.

Attendees must present identification proving residency in one of SWANCC’s 23 member suburbs in order to take advantage of the free recycling.

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