Can medicine punch cards containing resident names be disposed of in a garbage compactor at a nursing home. This is not an open dumpster. The garbage is compacted and then hauled to a landfill and covered.

Better to shred them first.

As long as the compactor is not accessible to anyone before being run, or it's locked, I see no problem. We've all heard of people who rifle through garbage cans and dumpsters finding sensitive data.