Merrimack to Tewksbury drop-off, planned as one trip

• The route
• When to leave
• One-trip plan
• Packing the car
• At the counter
• What it costs
• Fearon Road
• Checklist
• FAQ

By the New Hampshire Document Shredding team · Reviewed November 2026 · 15 min read

The Merrimack to Tewksbury drop-off route, leg by leg

We shred at one place, our office on Route 38 in Tewksbury, Massachusetts. We have no office, kiosk or drop box in Merrimack or anywhere else in New Hampshire. So every drop-off from Merrimack ends on Main Street in Tewksbury, and the good news is that almost all of it is highway.

This page is only about the drive and the plan. For every option Merrimack homes and businesses have, including pickups, see our main page on document shredding in Merrimack NH.

1. Get on the Everett Turnpike southbound. From Town Hall on Baboosic Lake Road, the Daniel Webster Highway area, Reeds Ferry or the Continental Boulevard side of town, use the nearest on-ramp for the turnpike south toward Nashua and Boston.
2. Ride it through Nashua and over the state line. The turnpike runs the length of Nashua with no turns. At the Massachusetts line it keeps going as Route 3 south through Tyngsborough and into Chelmsford.
3. Follow the signs for I-495 North, Lawrence. At the big interchange in Chelmsford, take the ramps for I-495 north toward Lawrence. The ramps split more than once, so keep to the Lawrence signs. On I-495 you run east past Lowell for about three miles.
4. Take Exit 92 for Route 38. The exit is signed Route 38, Lowell and Tewksbury. At the end of the ramp, follow Route 38 south. In Tewksbury it is called Main Street.
5. Drive about 2.6 miles to 1215 Main Street. Look for Unit 115. Parking out front is free, and staff come out with a cart to help you unload.

We worked these out with a routing engine from each starting point to our door, and rounded them. Real times swing with traffic far more than with your start point, which is why the next section matters more than this table.

Planning your Merrimack to Tewksbury drop-off as one trip

From Merrimack, the drive is the expensive part of the job in time. Our price list adds one more reason to make it count. The $34.90 in per-job fees, a $14.95 HIPAA filing fee and a $19.95 environmental fee, is charged once per job, not once per box. Three small trips pay it three times.

The chart shows two savings stacked on top of each other. Batching into one trip saves the repeat fees: three trips of three boxes cost $372.00, while one trip of nine costs $302.20. Crossing the 10-box line saves more again, because ten large boxes at the flat rate cost $200 in shredding against about $267.30 for nine boxes by weight. One trip with ten boxes comes to $234.90.

1. Pick one collection spot. Choose a closet or a corner of the basement and send every box, bag and drawer of old paper there for a few weeks. Paper scattered around the house always turns into a second trip.
2. Check what you must keep. Pull anything still inside its retention period before it goes in a box. The IRS says most tax records can go after 3 years, but 6 years if income left off a return was over 25 percent of what you reported, 7 years for a bad debt or worthless securities deduction, and at least 4 years for employment tax records.
3. Count your boxes. If you land at eight or nine, fill a tenth. At 10 or more, you pay by the box and the weight stops mattering.
4. Bag the non-paper. Old phones, hard drives, CDs and USB sticks go in a separate bag. We physically destroy them and quote them per item at the counter.
5. Pick your day and leave after the rush. A weekday, a late-morning departure, boxes loaded the night before. That is the whole plan.

If you want more on sorting and packing, our guide on how to prepare documents for shredding goes through it box by box.

What happens when you pull in at 1215 Main Street

From the moment you park to the moment you leave is usually a matter of minutes for a carload. Here is how it goes, so nothing surprises you after a 40-minute drive.

1. Park out front and come in. Parking is free and right by the door. Tell whoever is at the counter that you have boxes in the car.
2. We unload onto a cart. A staff member comes out with a cart. You do not have to carry anything in on your own.
3. We weigh or count. Under 10 boxes, the paper goes on the scale and you pay 99 cents a pound. At 10 or more boxes, we count them and charge $15 per small box or $20 per large box. We tell you which rate applies before anything is shredded.
4. You pay and get your paperwork. The $34.90 per-job fees are added once. Your Certificate of Destruction covers the job and records the date.
5. Your paper is shredded that day. Drop-off paper is cross-cut at our office the same business day, then baled and recycled.

If you would rather watch your paper go through the shredder, that is a separate service. A witnessed session is booked ahead, costs $1.99 a pound with a $100 minimum on the shredding charge plus the per-job fees, and the certificate is signed in front of you. Read more on our page about witnessed shredding, and see what the certificate records on our certificate of destruction page.

For a closer look at the counter itself, including what we can and cannot take, read how drop-off shredding works.

Who makes the drive down from Merrimack

The drop-off suits anyone whose paper fits in a car and who can spare a weekday morning. In practice that is four kinds of people.

Some paperwork has a legal reason behind the shredding. A landlord or employer who has pulled credit or background reports must dispose of them by burning, pulverizing or shredding under the FTC’s Disposal Rule, 16 CFR Part 682. And because New Hampshire’s breach notice statute, RSA 359-C:20, covers computerized personal data, any old laptop or drive in that same closet deserves its own bag on this trip.

Driving from somewhere else in southern New Hampshire? We have the same kind of plan for the Nashua to Tewksbury drop-off directions, the Manchester to Tewksbury drop-off and the Salem NH to Tewksbury drop-off. Every town we serve is listed on our service areas page.

The night-before checklist for a Merrimack drop-off

Most second trips happen because something was forgotten the first time. A five-minute check the night before saves you another hour on the turnpike. Run down this list with the boxes in front of you.

• Every room checked: home office, kitchen drawer, basement, attic and the car’s glove box
• Records still inside their retention period pulled out and put back on the shelf
• Box count done, and a tenth box filled if you are sitting at eight or nine
• Three-ring binder rings and hanging-folder frames removed
• Phones, hard drives, CDs and USB sticks in a separate bag
• Boxes closed or taped so nothing lifts out when a door opens
• Heaviest boxes loaded last, nearest the trunk opening
• Live traffic checked before you leave, and an arrival planned well before 5 p.m.

If you are clearing paper for someone else, such as a parent or a small business you keep the books for, bring a note of whose records they are. The certificate is issued for the job, and it is easier to file in the right place if you know whose paper it covered when you walk out.

Plans change. If the morning gets away from you, the counter is open every weekday, so the boxes can wait in the trunk for the next free morning. If the pile turns out bigger than the car, split it across two weekdays close together or call about a pickup instead. And if the paper is something you want to see destroyed, a witnessed session at our office can be booked ahead, including outside regular hours by appointment.

Sources

• Town of Merrimack, Solid Waste Division and Transfer Station (checked November 2026)
• Town of Merrimack, official website and Town Hall address (checked November 2026)
• Internal Revenue Service, How long should I keep records? (checked November 2026)
• Federal Trade Commission, Disposing of Consumer Report Information? Rule Tells How (checked November 2026)
• New Hampshire RSA 359-C:20, Notification of Security Breach Required (checked November 2026)