Detroit's paper is spread over a huge area, and that decides how shredding works. Downtown and Midtown have the hospital systems, courts, law offices and older office towers, and those buildings run on locked consoles emptied every two weeks or every month. North of Eight Mile it is a different job. Southfield's glass towers along Northwestern Highway hold insurers, accountants and law firms, while Warren, Madison Heights and the Downriver towns have plants and tool shops that clear paperwork once or twice a year.
Auto work adds its own layer. Suppliers keep engineering drawings, quality records and shipping paperwork, and some of it is confidential enough that the shredding has to be witnessed. If that is you, ask for on-site. Dearborn is the obvious case, with Ford's world headquarters and a long supplier chain around it. Estate cleanouts are steady in the older suburbs, where a family house of fifty years can give up forty boxes. Spring brings those, and March and April bring the accountants.
Pricing runs per box or per bin, or a flat fee per visit, and most vendors set a minimum, so a few boxes rarely justify a truck. On-site means the truck shreds at your curb. Off-site means the paper goes to a plant first. Medical and legal files usually warrant on-site, and any serious vendor will give you a certificate of destruction. Hard drives and backup tapes are handled separately from paper, which is why they belong in the form. Give your town, a rough box or bin count, whether it is one visit or a schedule, and whether drives are included.
