The Better Business Bureau will host a free document shredding event for residents and small businesses in Monroeville and surrounding communities Saturday.

The event, part of a national BBB-sponsored "Secure Your ID" Day, will be from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. in the parking lot of Roth Carpet & Floors, 3845 Northern Pike, Monroeville. The Paper Exchange, a member of the National Association for Information Destruction, will provide a mobile shredding truck.

BBB President Warren King urged the public to participate and "take a key step in identity protection" by shredding and properly disposing of up to three bags or three boxes of their sensitive documents that contain personal identifiers. The material should be standard-size paper documents and be removed from binders.

He said BBB staff will be on site to unload the bags and boxes and carry them to the shredder.

"No one will have to get out of their cars," he said.

"Shredding sensitive paper documents is an important step, but it doesn't end there," Mr. King added. "That's why BBB experts also will be distributing important advice and simple steps everyone can take to prevent ID theft in their daily lives, both online and off."

He said the local BBB office, which serves 28 counties in Western Pennsylvania, plans to hold two free document-shredding events a year. He anticipates about 1,500 bags or boxes of documents will be shredded on Saturday. He said 50 BBBs throughout the country held a shredding event in May during which 500 tons of documents were shredded.

Last year, 8.1 million Americans became victims of ID theft, resulting in the loss of $45 billion, according to a 2008 report from Javelin Strategy and Research. The report says the majority -- 56 percent -- of ID thefts occur when the thief has direct contact with the victim's personal information through a stolen or lost wallet, by rifling through a personal mailbox or trash can, or even by lifting documents from inside a home or business.

"This is largely a crime of access," Mr. King said. "Our goal here is to make the information less accessible and empower people to be their own first line of defense against identity theft. And one of the ways they can do it is by buying their own shredding machine."

In addition to the BBB and Roth Carpet & Floors, Equifax, NAID and ProQuo are sponsors of the shredding event.

For more information, go to www.pittsburgh.bbb.org, then go to "Announcements" and click on the "Secure Your ID Day" logo.