Shredding Documents

[Souschef]

My challenge with home shredding is that the bin for the shredder fills up quickly and it's a pain to empty without getting shreds of paper all over the place.

What I do is take off the shredder head, then slip a grocery bag or any other bag over the top. Then you invert it for no loss of shreds

 

[harllee]

Maybe you can reduce the volume of material to be shredded. When I'm going through documents for shredding, I often find that only a certain part (top third) of the document has personally identifying information that needs shredded. I tear that part off, put it on the shred pile and trash the rest. Cuts volume to be shredded by 2/3.

OP here good idea, I will do that. Takes time but I have plenty of time. I am making myself spend an hour a day on going through files, etc. DH has found he is "allergic" to old papers!

 

[audreyh1]

We don’t have a shredder here where we are staying. I’m going to take the scissors to our reconciled grocery receipts which aren’t particularly sensitive anyway. We have to take our trash to the county landfill and drop it in a giant compactor with everyone else’s nasty trash, so it’s not that easy to access anyway.

 

[ncbill]

Another vote for "buy a higher capacity shredder."

Shredding events (e.g. donate $5/box) in my area have been canceled for the duration.

 

[EastWest Gal]

We have a shredding company nearby. They charge 5$ for a banker's box full of paper (staples and plastic credit cards are ok too). They can either bring the truck or we go there. We usually wait until we have 3 or more boxes and go there. Getting rid of old tax returns and stuff like that is part of spring cleaning.

I haven't checked if they're open during our shelter-in-place situation, but I wasn't going to go out until things open up a bit anyway. We pay them at the office, then we take our boxes and empty them into their shredder truck. Then we watch the material get shredded. Very safe and virtually no human contact anyway, except for payment.

Our township has a shredding event once a year. I've never gone to it.

 

[brett]

We shred anything with our names, account numbers, financial etc. Have done so for many years.

When it comes time to discard old hard copy financial and tax records we take them down to the auto clubs annual shedder event. They park a big shredder truck in lot and we drive up.

We shred much less these days. We have moved as much as possible to electronic mail.

 

[Scrapr]

Local garbage company has a division that shreds on site. You can take your shred to their depot and drop it off. Pay inside. For large volume it's great

 

[harllee]

OP here --in normal times I have many local places to take my shredding to but that is not an option for me now. So I will either keep my shredding until later or buy a bigger shredder. My fireplace is gas so that is an option. As someone suggested I will go through the papers and tear off only the sensitive stuff to be shredded, I think that will help a lot. Thanks for all the suggestions.

 

[RunningBum]

Put them in a big can or watertight container of any kind, put in the papers, and fill with water, and let it sit for awhile, perhaps overnight. I use one of those garden weasel tillers to stir it up. The ink runs, and it becomes a big runny mess, that will try into a glob that is unreadable. It works best if the paper isn't tightly stacked, since the water won't really get to it and it's tough to separate. Takes a little experimenting to get it right and I've only done it once, awhile ago, so I don't recall exactly what I did.

My other option is to use it for starting grill fires with my chimney starter. But that doesn't take much paper, so it's not a solution for a big purge.

 

[Spock]

Put them in a big can or watertight container of any kind, put in the papers, and fill with water, and let it sit for awhile, perhaps overnight. I use one of those garden weasel tillers to stir it up. The ink runs, and it becomes a big runny mess, that will try into a glob that is unreadable. It works best if the paper isn't tightly stacked, since the water won't really get to it and it's tough to separate. Takes a little experimenting to get it right and I've only done it once, awhile ago, so I don't recall exactly what I did.

My other option is to use it for starting grill fires with my chimney starter. But that doesn't take much paper, so it's not a solution for a big purge.

I did this. With an added helping of a bottle of bleach that couldn't be hauled by the movers. Let it sit for a week. The garden weasel or a paint mixer bit on a drill is a must. Otherwise the papers will still fully legible.

 

[jazz4cash]

What I do is take off the shredder head, then slip a grocery bag or any other bag over the top. Then you invert it for no loss of shreds

Or take off the shredder head and use a plastic grocery bag to line the bin for a quick changeout.

 

[rk911]

Or take off the shredder head and use a plastic grocery bag to line the bin for a quick changeout.

i use shredder bags from office depot to line our shredder. when full the bag goes into our recycle cart. couldn't be simpler.

 

[scrabbler1]

Maybe you can reduce the volume of material to be shredded. When I'm going through documents for shredding, I often find that only a certain part (top third) of the document has personally identifying information that needs shredded. I tear that part off, put it on the shred pile and trash the rest. Cuts volume to be shredded by 2/3.

I do this a lot with those advertising mailers, especially political advertising which uses that heavy-stock paper.

Despite my best efforts to reduce the volume of paper to be shredded, and doing one of my "sort-and-shred" sessions every few weeks, I have gone through several small shredders over the years. Besides burning out the motors once in a while (letting the shredder rest for a while sometimes brings it back to life), I have had the automatic "on" feature fail, forcing me to turn it on every time I wanted to send something through it.

Paper jams are pretty common, too. The shredder sometimes doesn't pull the paper down evenly so it gets jammed up. I have become pretty good at taking the shredder apart to clear the paper jams, carefully avoiding the cutters with my fingers. But it means the total time spent shredding doubles (at least).

 

[easysurfer]

I've bought several personal shredders over the years. They didn't work out for one reason or another. However, I'm happy to say that now I have an Amazon Basics shredder what is robust enough to shred 12 pages at at time. Plus, it's a cross cut shredder and also does CD discs and credit cards.

 

[harllee]

OP here, I have finally finished all my shredding using my old shredder for 30-45 minutes a day. Coveredbridge's suggestion to tear off any part of a page that did not have sensitive material so as to only have to shred a part of the page was an excellent suggestion. On to organizing photos.

 

[W2R]

I am making myself spend some time each day going through files and boxes and I have a large box of papers to shred so far ( and more to come). I have a small shredder but after 30 or minutes or so it gets overheated and it only takes one page at a time. In the past I have taken large shred jobs to Staples but because we are high risk I am reluctant to do that now. Any suggestions how to get all these papers shredded? Thanks!

For now, put them someplace out of the way, in the attic if necessary.

Take them to Staples later on, if/when the risk of COVID-19 has lessened enough that you feel OK about going there.

 

[harllee]

I am the OP I have shredded them all now--doing 30 to 45 minutes a day. I feel a sense of accomplishment.

 

[brett]

Our local auto club used to (don’t know if they still do) have an annual service. They would bring in a large commercial shredder truck for six hours. Anyone could come and use this service. We drove up, popped the trunk, and they lifted several bankers boxes our of the trunk and heaved them into the shredder truck. Great community service.

 

[W2R]

I am the OP I have shredded them all now--doing 30 to 45 minutes a day. I feel a sense of accomplishment.

OOPS!! I'm sorry - - I didn't notice that!

Hey, CONGRATULATIONS on finishing all that shredding! You are inspiring me to start working on my own shredding which is piling up.

 

[harllee]

Our local auto club used to (don’t know if they still do) have an annual service. They would bring in a large commercial shredder truck for six hours. Anyone could come and use this service. We drove up, popped the trunk, and they lifted several bankers boxes our of the trunk and heaved them into the shredder truck. Great community service.

Our local credit union use to do that--of course all stopped now, wonder when or if it will start back.

 

[Lewis Clark]

Buy some marshmallows, graham crackers and chocolate. Eating s'mores will keep you entertained while slowly burning the documents in the grill or fireplace. : )