Mobile Shredding Association urges New Jersey lawmakers to remove amendment

New Jersey Senate Bill 2978, which would remove the restriction on mobile destruction of hard drives without a permit from the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection (DEP), has been unanimously approved by the State Assembly’s Environment & Solid Waste Committee.

The National Association for Information Destruction, Phoenix, said earlier this year that it had challenged the state’s permitting requirement.

However, the Mobile Shredding Association (MSA), Brunswick, Georgia, says in a news release that the bill’s future success “has been threatened with the last minute attachment of an amendment perhaps unlawfully showing favoritism to the National Association for Information Destruction (NAID).”  

According to MSA, “The problematic amendment to the bill, which has already passed in the [New Jersey] Senate and will be up for vote in the Assembly in a few days, reads ‘… as long as the owner or operator of the mobile unit submits a certification to the department, in writing, that the mobile unit is certified by the National Association for Information Destruction.’”

The text of the bill, which was amended Nov. 16, 2015, is available at https://legiscan.com/NJ/text/A4194/2014.

“Our office is fielding many calls from mobile shredding businesses in New Jersey expressing their concern over the troublesome amendment,” says Trace Hartridge, executive director of MSA. “Everyone we hear from is in favor of the original wording of the bill but vehemently opposes the amendment that has found its way into the bill at the last minute.”

According to MSA, one of its members has written to the association, stating: “The political position of the Red Tape Commission is to eliminate red tape by removing the permit restriction. But now what they’ve done is created another restriction by anointing NAID certification as the governing body within the law.”

MSA says it has heard from another member, who writes: “NAID was trying to take a very restrictive situation (no mobile hard drive shredding) and make it another restrictive situation (NAID certified only).”

According to the MSA, other members of the association say this requirement is unlawful and will not become law.

The MSA says it has written letters opposing the amendment to the bill sponsors, New Jersey Senate and Assembly Members, the Governor’s office and the Bob Johnson, CEO of NAID. MSA and concerned businesses maintain that an endorsement of an industry association within the wording of the law is inappropriate and should be removed. MSA says more neutral wording promoting fair trade should be used such as, “This bill would authorize a commercial company that crushes, shreds or otherwise physically destroys electronic storage devices, for the purpose of destroying the data contained in the device, to operate without a recycling permit from the Department of Environmental Protection.”

SDB contacted NAID's Johnson seeking comment and received the following statement: “NAID does not comment on private correspondence; however, we feel it is important for members to understand that prior to NAID stepping up, the New Jersey regulation on the mobile shredding of hard drives restricted the options of customers to select on-site destruction and limited mobile shredders' ability to provide such services. Under the proposed legislation, dozens of mobile service providers would be able to provide this service. The requirement in the proposed law for operators of mobile units to be NAID certified was not our intention. New Jersey legislators were uncomfortable moving from a highly restrictive law to a law that had no controls whatsoever. Therefore, after evaluating the available vendor qualifications, they chose the NAID certification requirement to satisfy that concern. NAID did not advocate for that provision. The fact remains that without the law, the state will remain in an environment where customers have restricted mobile options and where no additional mobile service providers benefit."