Our Strangest Shredding Service Request

If it can be shredded, we can shred it. That’s the philosophy that drives our approach to all client requests for a shredding service. Paper? Of course. Hard drives? No problem. Body armor? Actually, that is a problem – one that Northeast Data Destruction encountered not too long ago.

Shredding service strangeLet’s back up. Working for a shredding company doesn’t give us as many interesting workplace stories as a nurse or police officer might have to share at parties, but we’ve seen some interesting things come through our doors over the years. The day that our equipment almost broke because of top-secret mystery boxes was one of those times.

As clients of our shredding service know, Northeast Data Destruction offers scheduled, secure pickup services. We also provide destruction logs and allow representatives to witness their materials being destroyed – anything we can do to show our clients that our process is totally transparent and secure. But when the Department of Homeland Security needs something shredded, even stringent security protocols won’t suffice.

This client delivered a number of boxes to our facility, which is normal. They wouldn’t allow us to open the boxes, which is not. (We’ll never read your sensitive documents or look through your hard drives, but we do need to know what type of material we’re shredding!) Without looking inside the boxes, we couldn’t know if they contained anything that was flammable or toxic, or made of heavy-duty metals that couldn’t be shredded. 

But this was a matter of national security, and the client assured us that the boxes contained nothing but materials that are appropriate for shredding. We examined the boxes from the outside and tested their weight. They felt light, so we were confident they didn’t contain any steel or other metals that would damage our equipment.

So we started the shredding service. Everything went smoothly for the first 30 minutes or so, with the client on hand to witness the process. All of a sudden – SCREEEEECH. The shredder came to a sudden halt, having encountered something that it couldn’t handle. Our technicians shut off the power supply to the machinery and carefully opened the access doors to find that we had been attempting to shred several Kevlar bulletproof vests, which had inadvertently been left inside the mysterious boxes. Considering they’re made to be indestructible, that was one battle that our powerful shredder lost.

Disassembling the shred shaft and removing the vests got us back up and running, and our client apologized for the mistake. There was no lasting damage, but we did all get to go home with a good story about what can happen at a shredding company.

That’s just one example of an unusual shredding job that we’ve handled. Another time, we were charged with the task of shredding a truckload of pet furniture that had gotten wet during transit and started to mold. We’ve also shredded high-end leather purses, sweaters, prototype car parts and other damaged or off-spec products.

The companies that made those products opted for shredding not just as a means of getting rid of damaged products, but as an essential security measure. Take the moldy pet furniture: If those products had been landfilled, they could have been found and sold by unauthorized parties, which would have exposed the manufacturer to liability. Shredding those prototyped car parts kept the manufacturer’s competitors from studying and copying them.

Just like everything we do at Northeast Data Destruction, shredding these unusual items allowed us to give those clients total peace of mind. Shredding is an irreversible process. It’s a permanent way to protect trade secrets. Like Humpty Dumpty, nothing that goes through our machinery – from paper files to metal car parts – can be put back together again. That’s why this destruction method is ideal for paper, metal and just about any material in between. 

Do you have any odd or obscure items that need to be destroyed?  Shredding might be the right choice for your needs. (Maybe your job will give us our next good story!) And of course, if you have more traditional shredding needs, our shredding company can meet those too. Contact Northeast Data Destruction today.