Companies in the Capital Region and Tech Valley are constantly looking for ways to attract new customers and increase business. This is usually accomplished through the introduction of new products or services that will benefit customers by improving their lives in some manner.

At the same time, more companies these days are adding clients and increasing revenue by utilizing something that is all around us: the environment.

Tapping into a need

Schaap Records Management & Certified Shredding Services of Albany, a professional off-site document storage, retrieval and certified shredding firm, realized a few years ago that there was a need to provide shredding services to its customers.

The company stores roughly 50,000 boxes of confidential records in its warehouse and also has a commercial and residential moving division, creating a great deal of excess paper that requires disposal. As a result, the firm decided to purchase a shredding machine to provide in-house and off-site shredding to its customers.

"Schaap shreds and recycles all of its paper and cardboard in an environmentally friendly process," said company president Steve Schaap. "It is one of the few companies that delivers the shredded paper directly to paper mills, where it is re-pulped into a low grade of paper, such as hand towels, toilet tissue, packing towels and other recycled paper products."

The company receives additional revenue by sending the shredded paper directly to the mill, eliminating the need for it to go first to a landfill. Schaap currently shreds about 30 tons of paper per month, a number that continues to grow at a rapid pace.

Schaap Records Management & Certified Shredding Services in Albany shreds paper and cardboard materials both in-house and on-site in an environmentally friendly manner. It is one of the few companies to deliver shredded paper directly to paper mills, eliminating the need for the paper to go to a landfill first.