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CNN Live At Daybreak

People Shredding Documents in Record Numbers

Aired March 12, 2002 - 06:38   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
CAROL COSTELLO, CNN ANCHOR: Now to the business of destroying the paper trail.

Reporter Scott Budman of our San Francisco affiliate, KNTV, shows us a shredder that won't leave a shred of evidence.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

SCOTT BUDMAN, REPORTER KNTV: These are your tax forms, plane tickets, bill, and company documents. And these are your documents after being put through the shredder, not just any shredder. This is the biggest, baddest shredder in the West. You've heard of the construction business, welcome to the destruction business.

STEVE SUTTA, ASSURED SHREDDING: I can tell you that if Enron gave us their documents, no one would have ever put them together again.

BUDMAN: This is the flagship machine of the Bay Area's Assured Shredding line, and when you absolutely positively need something gotten rid of, you bring it here.

SUTTA: You name a major defense company or semiconductor company or someone in high tech at one point or another, we probably have shredded their documents over the years.

BUDMAN: And it's not just recycling that goes on here. There are security issues as well with identity theft cases on the rise, companies and individuals are shredding documents in record numbers. This machine alone may shred 700 tons of material a month, eight tons an hour.

Now just to put some of this in some kind of perspective for you, this entire stack of recyclable is almost six feet tall, can be recycled here in about six minutes.

The defense industry, national laboratories, and some of the biggest tech firms in the Bay Area unload paper here and after it all goes through, you have nothing but bales of recycled paper that you and I will use later.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

COSTELLO: At least we'll use it later. We got that report from Scott Budman of our San Francisco affiliate KNTV.

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