Shredding for a Greener Future: How Infoshred Turns Secure Destruction into Sustainability

When you think about document shredding, protecting confidential information is usually the first priority. But every time you shred with Infoshred, you also quietly help the environment and support your organization’s sustainability goals.

“When you hire a document shredding vendor, you are solely concerned with deeming your materials and your proprietary paperwork unreadable,” said Infoshred President Lombardo. “But what a lot of customers don’t understand is that it’s also an act of doing what’s right for the environment and sustainability, because all that paperwork that you’re shredding is getting sent to a recycling facility and made into new products.”

What Happens After Your Documents Are Shredded

For many customers, the story ends once their documents are securely destroyed. Infoshred takes it several steps further. “When the shredding confidential bins come into the facility, they’re put into a large industrial shredder, and then we bale all the paper,” Lombardo explains. “It basically compresses it into 1,800‑pound bales that we stack in the facility to await pickup.”

Several times a week, a tractor-trailer picks up these bales from Infoshred and transports them to a paper recycling facility. There, the paper is dropped into vats containing chemicals and water, formed into a slurry, and rolled into products such as paper towels, toilet paper, game board boxes, and tissue boxes. ‘When a customer uses a document destruction company like Infoshred, they are not only making sure confidential documents are made unreadable, they’re also performing an act of sustainability because they are recycling it as the final step in their destruction process,” Lombardo says.

Sustainability by the Numbers: Trees, Water, Energy Saved

Recycling through secure document destruction has a measurable environmental impact. Industry data show that recycling one ton of paper saves 17 trees, about 7,000 gallons of water, 380 gallons of oil, and three cubic yards of landfill space, and provides enough energy to power the average home for about six months. “One ton of paper saves 17 trees, 7,000 gallons of water, 380 gallons of oil and three cubic yards of landfill space,” Lombardo notes. “And a ton of paper recycled saves enough energy to run somebody’s home for six months.”

In 2025, Infoshred’s customers made a powerful impact. “In 2025, Infoshred recycled over 5,000 tons of paper from our shredding activities. If you translate that into how many trees saved, it would be 82,000 trees saved due to the recycling practices of our customer base,” Lombardo says. That environmental benefit comes built into Infoshred’s secure shredding services across Connecticut, Massachusetts, and Rhode Island, where 100% of shredded paper is recycled.

From Recycling Roots to Secure Shredding Leader

Infoshred’s commitment to the environment is not an add‑on. It’s part of the company’s DNA. The business began in recycling before expanding into secure document destruction. “We started in the infancy of this industry as part of a company that did recycling of paper. We did a lot of government work,” Lombardo recalls. “One of our clients came to us back in 1993 and said, ‘Hey, you’re recycling paper for us, and that’s great. But now we’re concerned about the confidentiality of what is on this paperwork. We’re looking to shred all of our paper.”

The company took up the challenge. Infoshred was born. They invested in large, industrial‑strength shredders and built a process that paired security with responsible recycling. Confidential documents are captured in their lockable bins, transported in GPS‑tracked, alarmed trucks to their East Windsor facility, shredded to a secure cross‑cut process, and then recycled into new paper products. “Doing the document shredding coming from roots of recycling was really helpful because we had a baseline of what it was to recycle paper and run a plant,” Lombardo says. “We were able to forge a different process for the shredding, with more security and controls and compliance around confidential paperwork to make sure that was recycled securely and responsibly.”

Helping Customers Meet Sustainability Reporting Requirements

More and more organizations are being required to report their sustainability and recycling performance, whether to boards, regulators, funders, or their communities. Infoshred’s secure document destruction and recycling program helps support those sustainability narratives. “One of the things that happens towards the end of the year at Infoshred is that we get a lot of requests for data from different towns, municipalities, and companies. They need it to fill out their sustainability paperwork requirements,” Lombardo says. “They are required to report back to whomever their governing body is.”

Customers must complete Environmental Impact Reports summarizing the amount of material they have shredded and recycled over the year. Using Infoshred’s software, the company’s team can retrieve a client’s annual recycling tonnage and generate a report quantifying trees saved, water conserved, and landfill space avoided. “We get bombarded with those requests at the end of the year,” Lombardo says. “Some of the state agencies have to report what they’re recycling — it’s a requirement — so they reach out to us and ask us for that information.”

Doing the Right Thing: Security and Sustainability in One Step

Sustainability has become a buzzword, but for Infoshred, it is a core responsibility. “The word ‘sustainability’ is a buzzword nowadays, but it’s been the way we’ve always done business,” Lombardo reflects. “I especially like this definition: ‘Sustainability is meeting the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.’ Sustainability is not a trend for us,” she added. “It’s a responsibility.”

When organizations partner with Infoshred for secure document shredding, they:

• Protect confidential data and comply with regulations such as HIPAA, FACTA, and GLBA.
• Keep shredded paper out of landfills and in the recycling stream, where it is repurposed into new products.
• Contribute to meaningful environmental metrics, from trees saved to energy conserved.

“I think that a lot of folks that are operating a shredding program don’t really understand that they are doing something good for the environment and ultimately something good for the earth,” Lombardo concludes. “They are shredding, they are recycling, it’s repurposing into new products. Ultimately, that means we’re all putting less in the landfill. That’s good for the environment.”