JACKSONVILLE, Fla. – In celebration of America Recycles Day, the city of Jacksonville partnered with Keep Jacksonville Beautiful for a paper-shredding event.
There were shredders at K-Mart in Neptune Beach and at the Prime Osborn Convention Center downtown where hundreds of residents from across the city came to shred their unwanted documents.
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That was the reason hundreds of vehicles stopped by the Prime Osborn Convention Center to get a load off their shoulders.
"I missed the last three so I've been waiting on this to shred all my documents that are very important to me," resident Annette Lawson Smith said.
Several local document shredding companies assisted to make sure the personal information people brought to the event was securely destroyed.
"We try to do it weekly, but it just got out of hand," shredder Joe Rodgers said. "Identity theft is a major concern these days."
During the event the Republic Services shredding truck broke down causing the company to have to transport documents to one of their numerous shredding location.
No matter where resident's documents ended up getting shredded, Keep Jacksonville Beautiful made sure they didn't just end up in the trash.
"The paper that they're taking back to be shredded it's not going into a landfill, it's going to be recycled," Dan Durbec, Executive Coordinator of Keep Jacksonville Beautiful, said.
Which, Keep Jacksonville Beautiful chairman, Chris Buckley, said is a win-win for everyone.
"Jacksonville is doing much better recycling. We still have some areas that don't have recycling available so this gives those people an opportunity to do some recycling and re-purpose some of the things they may have," Buckley said.
The event not only helped residents shred and recycle sensitive documents they didn't want getting into the wrong hands, donations were also collected to benefit a variety of local charities.