Safely Recycle Personal Documents, Electronics May 4

Duke community members have a chance to recycle more than bottles, cans and cardboard boxes next week.

On May 4, Duke students, employees and Durham community members are invited to bring personal paperwork and electronics to the Duke Credit Union at 2200 West Main St. for a community-wide recycling event from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m.  The program offers a safe way to recycle personal documents for free.

The Federal Trade Commission estimates that as many as 10 million Americans have their identities stolen each year. Duke community members can keep their private papers out of the hands of the wrong people by utilizing the free shredding event. Recycling services are provided by Shred-It, a Burlington-based secure paper shredding and document destruction service.

Suggestions for documents to shred could be any papers with personal records, a social security number or other sensitive data. That may include:

• Credit union statements
• Budgets
• Cancelled checks
• Credit card information
• Income tax records
• Insurance coverage
• Legal papers
• Old bills
• Medical records

Each employee or community member can bring up to four boxes of papers for shredding. Participants can also drop off electronic equipment, which will be wiped clean and then recycled by Metech, a national electronics recycling company. A full list of accepted electronics can be found on the Metech website.

For more information, call (919) 684-6704.