Paper Shredding in Philadelphia
Enter your zip code and say what needs shredding. Providers who serve Philadelphia, Camden and the surrounding suburbs send quotes for a purge, locked bins on a schedule, or a mobile truck.
Or call 833-733-4302
Center City Philadelphia is a walking city, and that is the problem with shredding in it. The streets are narrow, many buildings are old, and a full-size shredding truck does not fit down half of them. If your office is in a warehouse loft in Old City or a brick rowhouse turned law office near Rittenhouse, you will find out quickly which providers know the city and which are guessing.
Eds, meds and the law
This metro is built on hospitals and universities. Penn and its health system, Jefferson, Temple and Drexel anchor a medical corridor stretching across West Philadelphia and North Broad Street, and many independent practices have grown up around them. Those practices produce patient records, and HIPAA applies to all of them. Law firms cluster in Center City, many of them near City Hall and the courts. Insurance and finance offices sit along Market Street. Pharmaceutical and biotech companies occupy lab and office space in University City and the suburbs. Philadelphia is also a city of old row-house offices, funeral homes, church offices and neighborhood accountants, all of which hold boxes of paper nobody has looked at in years.
Past the river is Camden, with waterfront offices and county government, and distribution warehouses along the Delaware. Norristown, the Montgomery County seat, has county courts and offices, and Chester has industrial businesses and a long waterfront. A provider based in Philadelphia usually crosses into Camden without trouble, but ask: New Jersey routes sometimes belong to a different depot.
Trucks and tight streets
Ask each provider what size truck they would send. A smaller vehicle can get onto the narrow blocks in Society Hill or Fishtown. A full-size truck needs a loading zone, and the city is not generous with those. For buildings with no dock, a scheduled service with consoles inside and a driver who carries the bins out on a hand truck is often the sensible choice. Some blocks near the Convention Center and along Market have restrictions on when commercial vehicles can stop. Check with your building manager or the city before you plan a truck at the curb.
Old files, slow decisions
Old Philadelphia offices often hold decades of paper. Retention schedules for law firms and medical practices are long, and it is common to find thirty years of records in a basement. Before you hire a shredder, get a rough count of the boxes and sort out what has to be kept. The provider is not going to tell you what your retention schedule is. Your attorney or your professional association will. Then shred what is past its date, and ask for a certificate that lists the count.
For a purge, quotes are normally per box or per bin with a minimum for the truck. A building cleanout of a hundred boxes is a different job from a ten-box closet, and it helps to say which one yours is when you ask.
Churches, funeral homes and old firms
Philadelphia has a long record of institutions that last, and they keep paper. Congregations, schools, funeral homes, family law practices and neighborhood accountants hold files that were started by someone who has since retired. When you inherit that kind of records room, take your time sorting. Some records, such as deeds and estate documents, may need to be kept far longer than you think. Check with your attorney or your accountant first, and shred second.
Once you know what goes, a one-time purge is usually enough. In the older neighborhoods of South Philadelphia and Germantown, expect stairs and tight doorways. Tell the provider. A driver who knows the access up front will bring the right carts and the right number of people.
Across the river and out the Schuylkill
Philadelphia offices often have a second location across the Delaware in New Jersey or out along the Schuylkill in the suburbs. Two states can mean two sets of data disposal rules, and a provider who works on both sides can put them under a single contract. That is worth asking about if you manage a practice with offices in Center City and Camden. It spares you a second vendor and a second renewal date.
Standing service
Most offices that have a steady flow of confidential paper do best with locked consoles. They are emptied weekly or every other week by a driver, and you pay a flat monthly amount for each. You also get a certificate for each pickup. This is the setup for a dental office in the Northeast or a law firm on Walnut Street.
- Ask whether the consoles are locked and who holds the key.
- Ask for NAID AAA Certification and look at the date on it.
- Ask if the contract renews itself and what it takes to cancel.
If you run a small shop or a single-desk practice, the occasional community event is fine for a few boxes. State rules on discarding personal data can apply as well, so anything with client information should go through a provider who documents it.
Philadelphia has plenty of shredders, and not all of them are comfortable in the old parts of town. Ask about the street before you ask about the price.
