MURPHYSBORO - To shred or not to shred - that isn't really the question.
Jackson County officials are looking to spend upward of $11,000 a year to professionally shred documents. The only question is whether funding for professional shredding will come out of the county's general fund or its solid waste fund.
The sudden interest in document disposal is in response to recent complaints that claim sensitive documents are not being properly disposed of at the county's courthouse.
"Obviously the system broke down," board member Karl Maple said at a county solid waste committee meeting Thursday evening.
Maple was referring to last month's discovery of sensitive documents in the county's unlocked recycling bin outside of the courthouse.
Bart Hagston, solid waste manager for the county, said he looked into proposals from two companies that would amount to the county
paying 15-cents per pound for the shredding of documents. He said all together, county facilities generate an average of 6,300 pounds of shredded material every month.
Chris Barker, a representative from the Mount Vernon company DataLock was on hand to talk about the services his company could offer - describing his business as a security business and not a recycling business.
"It all does get recycled," he said. "The important part is that it gets shredded securely."
Barker said secure containers are put in several of the offices of buildings they serve. On a regular basis, the company would then come in and take those containers and take them back to the Mount Vernon site where they would be properly shredded and sent to a Kentucky company for recycling.
Committee members listened to Barker's sales pitch and discussed the possibility of just placing shredders inside each of the county offices.
But committee chairman John Evans said that might not do the trick - there's still the risk of an employee not knowing what a sensitive document is, leaving it unshredded and then throwing it in the trash only to be found later.
"If we're wanting to be uniform across the board the best way is to go with a company," Evans said.
Board chairman Gary Hartlieb and county board member Darnecea Moultrie said they don't want to move on this unless they know the money will come out of the solid waste fund (a fund that generates money through the disposal of waste at Southern Illinois Regional Landfill).
Board members emphasized the need to get this matter resolved expediently.
"I think we kind of need to move on this in some form," Maple said.
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