Updated November 2026 · Portsmouth, NH 03801
Shredding in Portsmouth NH: drive it down or book a pickup
Portsmouth paper gets shredded at our Tewksbury office, about an hour south on I-95 and I-495, for 99 cents a pound. This page shows the real cost of a Seacoast pickup, when the drive is the better deal, and when a spring shred day is all you need.
99¢ per pound at our Tewksbury drop-off. Portsmouth pickups are Zone 3. Certificate of Destruction on every job.
- 99¢ per pound
- Zone 3 pickup $199.95
- Since 2007
- BBB A+ rated
Quick answer
New Hampshire Document Shredding handles shredding in Portsmouth NH two ways: you drive your boxes about an hour to 1215 Main Street, Unit 115, Tewksbury, MA and pay 99 cents a pound, or we pick up from your Portsmouth address for a $199.95 Zone 3 transport fee plus the same shredding rate. Every job adds $34.90 in fixed fees and comes with a Certificate of Destruction.
For a few boxes, a spring shred day or a planned drive costs less. For an office purge, a pickup usually wins. Our document shredding rates are the same for every town in New Hampshire.
Three ways to get Portsmouth paper shredded
We shred at one place only, our office at 1215 Main Street, Unit 115, in Tewksbury, Massachusetts. There is no truck parked on Market Square and no drop box at Pease. Your Portsmouth paper either rides down I-95 in your car or in ours.
That sounds like a drawback for a Seacoast customer, and for small jobs it can be. The upside is simple. You know exactly where your records go, the price is printed before you call, and the shredding happens under one roof that you can visit any weekday.
Most Portsmouth customers fall into one of three groups. Households with a closet of old tax years. Offices at Pease or downtown with a storage room that finally has to go. Medical and dental practices that need a certificate for every batch.
Each group fits a different service. The cards below sum them up, and the rest of this page goes through the numbers.
Drop-off in Tewksbury
Walk in Monday to Friday, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., no appointment. You pay 99 cents a pound, or $15 a small box and $20 a large box when you bring 10 or more. The paper is shredded the same business day. Details are on our drop-off shredding page.
Pickup from Portsmouth
We collect from your home or office by appointment and shred at our office after the boxes arrive. Portsmouth is Zone 3, so transport is $199.95 on top of the shredding rate. Our off-site shredding page covers the full process.
Witnessed session
You come to Tewksbury and watch your own material go through the shredder, then sign the certificate on the spot. It costs $1.99 a pound with a $100 job minimum, plus the fixed fees. Most people who pick this are lawyers, executors and practice owners.
Drive, pickup or shred day: an honest answer for Portsmouth
Here is the advice we give on the phone. If you have one to four boxes and you can wait until spring, a community shred day on the Seacoast is hard to beat on price. Banks and credit unions around Portsmouth run them, usually on a weekend morning, and many limit how many boxes each car can bring.
Shred days have limits, though. They happen a few times a year, lines can be long, and you rarely get a certificate with your name on it. If you need the paper gone now, or you need proof for a client file, you need a paid option. Our list of shred events explains how to find the free ones and what they usually accept.
Between the two paid options, the math is mostly about the $199.95 transport fee. A pickup costs the same per pound as drop-off. You are paying for the round trip, the loading, and not losing a morning of your own.
| Your situation in Portsmouth | What we suggest | Why |
|---|---|---|
| 1 to 4 boxes, no deadline | Spring shred day | Free if a nearby event takes your volume. No certificate in most cases. |
| 1 to 9 boxes, need it done this month | Drive to Tewksbury | You save the $199.95 transport fee. Plan it with another trip south. |
| 10 to 20 boxes, someone free to drive | Drive, if the car holds them | Flat box rates apply at 10 boxes. Ten banker’s boxes fill most hatchbacks. |
| 20 or more boxes, or a busy office | Book a pickup | Staff time and loading cost more than the transport fee. |
| Patient or client files needing proof | Pickup or witnessed | Certificate of Destruction with every job. BAA on request. |
| Hard drives, phones, USB sticks | Call for a quote | Media is physically destroyed and quoted per item. |
Ask yourself one question before you book. Is anyone already driving to the Merrimack Valley this month? A shopping run to Salem, a visit to family in the Lowell area, a flight out of Boston with a stop on the way back. If yes, the drop-off costs nothing extra in transport.
For a side by side of both paid services, read drop-off vs off-site. It walks through the same choice for every New Hampshire town, not only the Seacoast.
What shredding in Portsmouth NH costs
Every price below comes from our published rate sheet. Under 10 boxes, you pay by the pound. A standard banker’s box of paper weighs about 30 pounds, so one box comes to about $29.70 of shredding. At 10 boxes or more, you can pay a flat $15 for a small box or $20 for a large banker’s box.
Two fixed fees go on every job, $14.95 for the HIPAA filing that produces your certificate and $19.95 for recycling the shred. That is $34.90 per job, whether you bring one box or fifty. A pickup from Portsmouth adds the Zone 3 transport fee of $199.95. The full table lives on our shredding rates page.
| Banker’s boxes | Shredding | Drop-off total | Portsmouth pickup total |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 box (about 30 lb) | $29.70 | $64.60 | $264.55 |
| 5 boxes (about 150 lb) | $148.50 | $183.40 | $383.35 |
| 10 large boxes | $200.00 | $234.90 | $434.85 |
| 20 large boxes | $400.00 | $434.90 | $634.85 |
Look at the gap between the two columns. It never changes. The pickup always costs $199.95 more than the drive, so the question is what your time and gas are worth. A two-hour round trip for one box rarely makes sense to pay someone else for. A whole office on a weekday does.
There is one quirk worth knowing. At seven, eight or nine full boxes, the per-pound total passes $200, which is what ten large boxes cost at the flat rate. If you are close to ten, fill the tenth box before you come.
Stairs change the pickup price. The Zone 3 fee assumes ground-level or elevator access. A walk-up office over a Congress Street shop or a third-floor condo with no elevator gets a handling fee, and we quote it before you book so the invoice holds no surprises. If you want the broader picture across the state, our guide to pickup costs by distance compares Seacoast and Merrimack Valley zones.
The drive from Portsmouth to our Tewksbury office
From downtown Portsmouth, Pease or the Lafayette Road corridor, the route is the same. Take I-95 South through Hampton and into Massachusetts, pick up I-495 South at Salisbury, and follow it to the Route 38 exit in Tewksbury. Our office is on Route 38, which is Main Street, near the interchange.
Plan on about an hour outside rush hour for roughly 50 miles. Summer weekends on I-95 and the evening commute on I-495 can stretch that. Our counter is open Monday to Friday, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., so a mid-morning departure from Portsmouth puts you in Tewksbury well before lunch.
- Load the car the night before. Banker’s boxes with lids stack best. Tape any box that is overfull so nothing slides out at a toll booth.
- Head south on I-95. You pass the Hampton toll, cross into Massachusetts, and stay right for I-495 South at Salisbury.
- Follow I-495 to Route 38. Take the Route 38 exit in Tewksbury and head toward 1215 Main Street, Unit 115.
- Park out front. Parking is free. Staff come out with a cart and help you unload, so you do not need to carry anything inside.
- Weigh and pay. We weigh the boxes, you pay by the pound or by the box, and the paper is shredded the same business day.
- Take your certificate. Every job gets a Certificate of Destruction that lists the date and the weight.
At the counter, you do not need an appointment or an account. Bring the boxes, tell us the name to put on the certificate, and wait a minute while the scale does its work. Most drop-offs from the Seacoast are in and out in a few minutes, which leaves time for lunch before the drive home.
Portsmouth offices: Pease, downtown and Lafayette Road
Portsmouth packs a lot of paper into a small city. Every business area has its own habits, and those habits decide which service fits. These are the ones we hear about most from Seacoast callers.
Pease International Tradeport
The former air base is now office parks, industrial buildings and the airport. Offices there tend to run large annual purges and have loading docks, which makes a pickup quick. One scheduled visit can clear a whole storage room.
Downtown and Market Square
Law offices, financial advisers, architects and small agencies sit above shops in old brick buildings. Many are walk-ups. Ask about stairs when you book so the handling fee is quoted up front.
Lafayette Road
Route 1 has insurance agencies, tax preparers, car dealers and retail offices with steady paper. Tax season and year-end are the busy times. Customers here often batch a year of files into one pickup.
Medical offices near the hospital
Practices around Portsmouth Regional Hospital and on the medical office streets nearby handle patient records every day. They usually want a certificate per batch and a Business Associate Agreement on file.
If you run a Seacoast business with a steady flow of records, start with our page on Portsmouth business shredding. It goes deeper on Pease contractors and office purges than this page can.
Clinics, dental offices and therapists should read our medical shredding service page. It covers how we sign a BAA, what the certificate shows, and how to keep the paperwork your auditor will ask for.
Office managers at Pease often ask whether one pickup can cover two suites in the same building. It can, as long as both are at one address and one invoice. Tell us at booking so the driver brings enough room.
Portsmouth households and the city’s shredded paper rule
Most Portsmouth homes do not need a pickup. They need a plan. A kitchen-table sort, two or three boxes in the trunk, and one weekday trip south, or a spring shred day if the timing works.
If you shred at home instead, the City of Portsmouth has a clear rule. Its Public Works page on shredded paper asks you to put shreds in a paper bag, staple or tape it shut, and add it to your paper recyclables, or seal the shreds inside a cardboard box. The reason is practical. Loose shreds blow around the yard and the street while waiting for collection.
That rule is fine for a few envelopes a week. It gets old fast with a decade of bank statements. A small home shredder jams on staples and heats up after a few minutes, while our counter takes paper with staples, clips and folders still in place.
What Portsmouth households usually bring
- Tax returns and supporting papers past the IRS keeping period, which is three years in most cases
- Bank, brokerage and credit card statements you can now download
- Medical bills and insurance explanation of benefits forms
- Pay stubs, old W-2s and closed loan files
- Papers from a parent’s house after a move or a death
- Pre-approved credit offers and anything printed with your Social Security number
Retirees and families clearing out a Seacoast house have a separate guide. Our page on Portsmouth residential shredding covers what to keep, what to shred and how to plan one trip. For the statewide view, see residential shredding.
Executors have it hardest. A parent’s house in the South End or out past the rotary can hold forty years of checkbooks, medical bills and tax files, and the estate may still need some of them. Keep the last three years of tax returns and anything the estate lawyer asks for, then shred the rest in one batch. Our page on estate and downsizing shredding has a sorting order that works.
One tip from the counter. Sort into three piles before anything goes in a box: keep, shred and recycle. Catalogs, plain envelopes and newspapers go straight into your blue bin. Only paper with names, numbers or signatures needs to come to us, and that cuts the weight you pay for.
How a Portsmouth pickup works, start to finish
A pickup is booked, not dispatched on demand. We set a date with you, the driver comes to your Portsmouth address, and the boxes travel to Tewksbury to be shredded at our office. Here is the sequence.
- Book online or call. Tell us the address, the rough box count, and whether there are stairs or a loading dock. We confirm the zone and the date.
- Prepare the boxes. Leave staples, paper clips, binder clips, rubber bands and file folders in. Take out three-ring binder hardware and hanging-folder frames.
- Separate any media. Hard drives, CDs, tapes and phones go in their own bag. They are destroyed separately and quoted per item.
- Hand off at your door. The driver loads the sealed boxes and leaves. You do not need to stay for the whole visit once the count is agreed.
- Shredding in Tewksbury. The boxes are weighed and cross-cut shredded at our office after they arrive. The shred is baled and recycled.
- Certificate in hand. You receive a Certificate of Destruction for the job. File it with your records policy.
The night before a pickup, walk the boxes once. Look for anything you meant to keep, like an original deed or a will, and pull it out. Once the box leaves your office, it is going to be shredded.
Our shredding pickup checklist is a one-page version of this list you can print for your front desk.
What a pickup is not
It is not a truck that shreds at your curb, and nothing is shredded at your address. The paper is shredded in Tewksbury after it arrives. If you need to see it destroyed, book a witnessed session instead.
No contract needed
You book one pickup at a time. There is no long-term agreement and no monthly minimum. Some Seacoast offices book once a year, others every quarter, and the price per pound is the same either way.
Records rules that apply to Portsmouth offices and homes
New Hampshire has no special Portsmouth disposal law. The rules that matter are federal, plus the state breach notice law. Here are the ones our Seacoast customers ask about, in plain words.
| Rule | Who it covers | What it asks |
|---|---|---|
| HIPAA Privacy Rule, 45 CFR 164.530(c) | Medical, dental and mental health practices | Reasonable safeguards for patient records, including at disposal |
| HIPAA Security Rule, 45 CFR 164.310(d)(2)(i) | Same, for electronic media | Policies for final disposal of drives and media holding patient data |
| FTC Disposal Rule, 16 CFR Part 682 | Anyone using consumer reports, such as landlords and employers | Burn, pulverize or shred so the information cannot be read |
| GLBA Safeguards Rule, 16 CFR Part 314 | Financial firms, including tax preparers | A written security program that covers disposal |
| NH RSA 359-C:19 to 359-C:21 | Businesses holding New Hampshire residents’ data | Notice to people and the state after a security breach |
The Federal Trade Commission’s guidance on the Disposal Rule gives shredding papers as an example of a reasonable measure. For a medical practice, the HIPAA citations above are the ones your compliance binder should name. Our page on HIPAA shredding requirements breaks them down further.
Before you shred, check how long you have to keep things. The IRS says three years for most tax records, six years if income was underreported by more than 25 percent, seven years for a bad debt or worthless securities claim, and at least four years for employment tax records. Our document retention guide lists the common business records too.
The certificate of destruction is the piece of paper that ties all this together. It shows what was destroyed and when. Keep it with your retention log.
Nearby Seacoast towns we serve the same way
Portsmouth customers often share a pickup date with a branch office or a family member in a neighboring town. The prices are the same everywhere, only the zone changes.
Down Route 1 and I-95, document shredding in Hampton works the same way as here, and the drive to Tewksbury is a little shorter. Inland, document shredding in Exeter covers the downtown offices and the Route 101 corridor.
North of the bridge, document shredding in Dover follows the same Seacoast pattern. For every town we serve and its zone, start at our service areas page.
Not sure which zone your address falls in? We confirm it when you book. Call (978) 636-0301 and give the street address, and you will have the transport fee before you hang up.
Frequently asked questions
Do you have a shredding location in Portsmouth?
No. New Hampshire Document Shredding has one office, at 1215 Main Street, Unit 115, Tewksbury, MA, and all shredding happens there. Portsmouth customers either drive their boxes down, about an hour via I-95 and I-495, or book a pickup. We do not have a drop box, kiosk or truck stationed in Portsmouth or anywhere in New Hampshire.
How much does a pickup from Portsmouth cost?
Portsmouth is in Zone 3, so the transport fee is $199.95. On top of that you pay the normal shredding rate, 99 cents a pound under 10 boxes or $15 to $20 a box at 10 or more, plus $34.90 in fixed fees. Five banker’s boxes come to about $383.35 in total. The zone fee assumes ground-level or elevator access.
Is it cheaper to drive my boxes from Portsmouth to Tewksbury?
Yes, by exactly the $199.95 transport fee. The shredding rate and the $34.90 job fees are the same for drop-off and pickup. For one to nine boxes, the drive usually makes sense if someone can spare two hours. For twenty boxes or a busy office, most customers decide their time is worth more than the fee.
Can I put shredded paper in Portsmouth curbside recycling?
The City of Portsmouth asks you to bag it first. Its shredded paper instructions say to put shreds in a paper bag, staple or tape it shut, and add it to your paper recyclables, or seal them in a cardboard box. Loose shreds blow around before collection. When you bring whole documents to us, we handle the recycling.
Do I need to remove staples and paper clips?
No. Staples, paper clips, binder clips, rubber bands and file folders can all stay. Please take out three-ring binder hardware and hanging-folder frames, and put anything that is not paper, such as CDs or hard drives, in a separate bag. Media is destroyed separately and quoted per item.
Will I get proof that my records were destroyed?
Yes. Every job, drop-off, pickup or witnessed, comes with a Certificate of Destruction. It is covered by the $14.95 HIPAA filing fee that is part of the $34.90 per-job fees. Medical practices can also ask for a Business Associate Agreement before the first job.
Are there free shred days near Portsmouth?
Banks and credit unions on the Seacoast run community shred days, most often in spring, and they usually limit the number of boxes per car. Dates change each year, so check with the host. For a few boxes and no deadline, a shred day is a good choice. For anything larger or urgent, use drop-off or a pickup.
Can you shred the same day you pick up?
We do not promise a pickup on the day you call. Pickups are booked by appointment, and the paper is shredded at our Tewksbury office after it arrives. Paper you drop off yourself at the counter is shredded the same business day. If timing matters, call and we will give you the earliest date we can confirm.
Sources
- City of Portsmouth, Shredded Paper Instructions (checked November 2026)
- City of Portsmouth, City Hall and contact information (checked November 2026)
- FTC, Disposing of Consumer Report Information? Rule Tells How (checked November 2026)
- IRS, How long should I keep records (checked November 2026)
Ready to clear the paper out of your Portsmouth home or office?
Drive it to Tewksbury in about an hour, or book a Zone 3 pickup and let us carry it. Either way you pay 99 cents a pound, the paper is shredded at our office, and you get a Certificate of Destruction.
New Hampshire Document Shredding
1215 Main Street, Unit 115
Tewksbury, MA 01876
Monday to Friday, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Pickups and witnessed sessions outside these hours by appointment.
Three ways to shred: drop-off at 99¢ per pound, pickup from Portsmouth at $199.95 plus the same rate, or a witnessed session at $1.99 per pound. Questions go through our contact page.
New Hampshire Document Shredding · 1215 Main Street, Unit 115, Tewksbury, MA 01876 · (978) 636-0301 · Monday to Friday, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.