For years, the answer we gave to “do you take paper?” was no. People would show up with a truckload of old electronics and a couple of banker's boxes of tax records riding along in the passenger seat, and we'd have to send the paper back home with them. That's over. E-Tech Recyclers is now a secure document shredding drop site, and the rate is $0.90 per pound — weighed at our counter, shredded by Iron Mountain.
Drop-off shredding is usually priced by the pound, and around here a dollar a pound is the number you'll see most often — sometimes more, depending on where you take it. We set ours at $0.90. That dime doesn't sound like much until you weigh what people actually bring in.
A packed letter-size banker's box of documents runs somewhere around 30 pounds, depending on how tightly it's stuffed. A case of copier paper — ten reams — is close to 50. Most home cleanouts we see are two to four boxes. Most small office cleanouts are considerably more than that, because nobody purges the filing cabinet until they have to.
Weights are estimates to help you plan — your actual cost is whatever the scale says when you arrive, at $0.90 per pound. At a dollar a pound, that same 300-pound purge is $300.
We're a drop site, and we say that plainly because the distinction matters if you're handing over sensitive paperwork. Here's the actual sequence: you bring your paper to our building at 2854 N Prospect St., we weigh it at the counter so you know the cost before you leave, and it stays with us until Iron Mountain collects it and shreds it at their facility.
What that means for you: nothing gets shredded at our counter while you stand there watching, and it isn't destroyed the same afternoon you drop it off. It's collected, then destroyed by a company whose entire business is secure document destruction. If your organization has documentation requirements around records disposal, call us before you load up and we'll tell you what we can and can't provide for your paperwork.
The best part of this service, honestly, is how little prep it takes. You do not need to sit at a table pulling staples out of ten-year-old invoices.
Paper has to be dry, and cardboard can't come. Damp paper can't be accepted for shredding, so if your boxes have been sitting in a garage or a basement, check them before you load up. And pull documents out of 3-ring binders and hardcovers first — the paper is welcome, the binder isn't. If you're unsure about something in the pile, call us at (719) 799-6517 before you make the drive.
A trash bag full of old statements is readable by anyone who opens it. Bank records, tax returns, medical bills, client files, employee paperwork, anything with an account number or a Social Security number on it — that information stays valuable long after the paper stops being useful to you. Shredding closes that gap for a few dollars a box.
The other reason people use a drop site is simple arithmetic on their own time. Home office shredders take a handful of sheets at a time, jam on staples, and overheat after fifteen minutes. Clearing out a decade of files that way is a weekend. Loading it into the car is an hour.
If you're purging records, the paperwork is usually only half of it. The old desktop in the closet has the same tax returns on its hard drive. The backup CDs in the drawer have the client list. That's the nice thing about bringing paper to a recycler instead of a shredding truck — you can clear all of it out in a single trip.
You don't need to wipe anything before you bring it. That's our job, and it's the part we've been doing for years.
Drop off during business hours at 2854 N Prospect St., Colorado Springs, CO 80907. No appointment needed for most residential drop-offs — back up the ramp and we'll weigh it at the counter.
Hours: Mon-Fri: 9AM-4PM, Sat: 10AM-2PM
