Story and Photo by Caren Ventrone

 

Hug a tree, save the world?

 

Absolutely. Shredding can actually make a world of difference—especially right here in Pinellas County. One company’s contribution to the cause, AmeriLife in Clearwater, Florida is going out on a limb to help save a tree. Actually, make it 143 trees.  

 

Due in large part to joining the Secure Shredding program with Iron Mountain, AmeriLife has saved 143 trees from being cut down, equating to 3,870 gallons of oil saved and 25 less cubic yards of waste in our landfills. If those are not enough reasons to use a professional shredding service, no worries, AmeriLife can provide a couple more.You may breathe easier knowing 505 pounds of air have been prevented from being polluted, along with 58,895 gallons of water saved to help supply Florida’s thirsty energy crops, which is no mere drop in the bucket.

 

When you multiply this by the growing numbers of companies participating in Iron Mountain’s and other shredding and recycling programs, you realize the shredding and destruction process provides a multitude of benefits to our environment: reduces pollution, discourages dumpster diving leading to identity theft and is actually saving corporations and counties thousands of dollars every year. In past years, Pinellas County has spent an annual amount of $750,000 in maintaining the Toytown landfill in St. Petersburg. The good news is there are big plans for the 240-acre landfill site, just east of I-275 in St. Petersburg, to be purchased relieving Pinellas County of the cost of maintaining the landfill.

 

Besides the landfill issue, there is the issue of identity theft, which continues to grow.  In today's computerized and networked society, it is easy to fall prey to an identity thief. Sandy Faulk, Manager of the Records Management & Scanning and Imaging Department, and Katy Anderson, Quality Assurance Analyst of Record Management have been overseeing AmeriLife’s recycling program since its inception. Their company-wide “Let’s Go-Green” mantra is quite simple; remember the three Rs, Reduce, Reuse and Recycle.

 

“We have contracted Iron Mountain as our secure shredding vendor for the systematic control of records through the records cycle creation, maintenance and disposition,” explains Ms. Faulk. “Their system of records management ensures that records needed by the organization will be maintained and protected until they are properly destroyed under the rules of the records retention program.” AmeriLife has earned and been awarded a Certificate of Achievement for the environmental benefits of its secure shredding program with Iron Mountain.

 

As a follow-up to their successful recycling program at Amerilife, Ms. Anderson was pleased to add, “We have a great opportunity through our association with Office Depot and Hewlett Packard to earn points for recycling toner cartridges. This recycling program will allow the company to acquire needed equipment, reduce the company’s overall cost of acquisition and at the same time help the environment by keeping the cartridges out of landfills.  The recovery and reuse of empty printer cartridges diverts millions of cubic feet of material from waste disposal, saving us the millions of tax dollars needed to pay for additional landfill management.”