# What's A Good Paper Shredder?



## BruiseLee (Feb 25, 2005)

*What\'s A Good Paper Shredder?*

I know a lot of people who have been victims of identity theft. I was busy paying my monthly bills tonight, and I'm thinking I sure am throwing out a lot of paper - I think I threw out about a dozen credit card oriented envelopes alone!

So, I'm thinking it might be a good time to invest in a paper shredder. My mom had a Fellowes one that worked pretty well for about two years before it mysteriously died. 

Can anybody recommend one? It's for home use, so it doesn't have to be a heavy duty unit built for a big office. If possible, I'd like to keep the cost down to below $100.

Bruise


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## cy (Feb 25, 2005)

*Re: What\'s A Good Paper Shredder?*

Royal 10x crosscut paper shredder purchased at Sams aprox 2 years ago for $45 works great!


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## NeonLights (Feb 25, 2005)

*Re: What\'s A Good Paper Shredder?*

The best paper shredder I've found is our 8 month old Saint Bernard puppy, Freya. I just came home from work to a shredded box of Kleenex all over the office floor, and yesterday she shredded a stack of papers I had sitting beside my desk. The only problem with a using a Saint Bernard puppy for a paper shredder is that they tend to be somewhat indiscriminate with what they shred. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif

-Keith


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## prescottrecorder (Feb 25, 2005)

*Re: What\'s A Good Paper Shredder?*

I've been really, really pleased with my Aurora AS1512X shredder. It's quiet, can shred a lot in one pass, also shreds credit cards and CDs and looks pretty good. Got it at Costco with a big rebate several years ago. Don't know if they're easy to find now.


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## PaulW (Feb 25, 2005)

*Re: What\'s A Good Paper Shredder?*

Just a couple of weeks ago I bought a Royal VF1000 ITIX, evidently the same one that CY got. It was $50 at Sam's. It claims to do 10x, but that's for thin paper, 24 lbs or less. I have used it reliably for bank statements at 8x.

I was cleaning out my old financial papers going back to the 60s. I must have generated close to 10 kitchen-sized bags of tightly compressed shreds, and it's still going strong. They call this one the "heavy-duty" version. I kept it going easily for hours on end. Even though it got warm, the overheat mechanism did not trip.

The "medium duty" version was only half the price, but it was not advertised as being capable of continuous shredding.

Paul


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## newo (Feb 25, 2005)

*Re: What\'s A Good Paper Shredder?*

The brand names and model numbers change pretty frequently.

I am currently on my 5th shredder (at home) in about 15 years.

What you really want to pay attention to are certain features. You want cross-cut - accept no substitutes. You want the ability to have the shredding mechanism reverse - helps fix, and prevent, clogs - look for a switch setting that says reverse, or something like that. The ability to shred credit cards is worth having. If you use writable CDs to backup your financial and personal data, the ability to eat CDs is good, but you could use aircraft (metal) snips too.

If you watch for sales at Office Depot, Office Max, or Staples, pay attention to features, and are willing to spend $100 or so, you'll get something that will hold up for several years.

They do wear out. And the paper cutters will get dull over time, and there really isn't a way to resharpen them. So resign yourself to replacing this item every four or five years. If it doesn't last that long, you probably bought a lighter duty one than you actually need, and make sure you upgrade the next time around.


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## prescottrecorder (Feb 25, 2005)

*Re: What\'s A Good Paper Shredder?*

Newo's advice is right on and more usefull than a particular model number. Make sure that the crosscut pieces are really small and go with heavier duty rather than light. I had a light duty shredder with all of these features, but it was painfully noisy, tended to jam, generated ridiculously big pieces of shredded paper and filled up quickly. It didn't get used that often. The Auroro works so well that we use it just for fun.


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## paulr (Feb 25, 2005)

*Re: What\'s A Good Paper Shredder?*

Beyond crosscut there's the issue of the size of the little shreds. Some crosscut shredders make pieces about 1/4" wide and 2" long. It's pretty easy to reassemble those enough to get an account number or something off the original, if you're worried about that. (There are even computer programs that do it--you put the shreds into a scanner and the program recreates the original image based on matching the edges of the scanned shreds). Shredders for classified documents make shreds 1/16" by 1/2" and start at around $1000. Reasonable civilian shredders are generally in between those sizes. I have a Royal CIA 12X which shreds to around 1/8" by 1/2" and cost $200 a few years ago, but it's discontinued now (try ebay). 

If you have a lot of old stuff to shred, you can call a shredding service like Instashred. They can come pick it up and take to a shredding/recycling facility, or for higher security they can send a mobile shredder (truck mounted) and shred the stuff at your location. Or you can bring it to them. Our office used a pick-up/remote shredding service and they charged us about $15 per container ("container" is a closed, locked wastebasket with a mailbox-like slot in the top, about the size of a 40 gal garbage can, so we'd just drop our confidential printouts into it for disposal, and once a month or so they'd come empty it out). I think there was a minimum charge of $45 a month (several containers). That didn't apply if you actually brought the stuff to them. You could get a carload of paper shredded and recycled for $45 or something like that.


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## Wingerr (Feb 25, 2005)

*Re: What\'s A Good Paper Shredder?*

I used to tear all the ubiquitous credit card solicitations up the middle and shred the left side only, because that's where all the name and address stuff was, but now they've taken to putting it on the left up top, and on the right at the bottom. I wonder if they did that just to irk me.. Remember: just because you're not paranoid doesn't mean they not all out to get you-

My crosscut shredder's a light duty one and somewhat raucous in operation, so I do a quick rip and tear of the parts that have any good stuff on it for feeding into the shredder instead of the whole shebang. It's rated for something like 5 sheets at once, but I'm pretty sure they develop the ratings using Charmin.
The Aurora one from Costco is pretty pleasant sounding in operation; when mine bites the dust, I'll probably look for that one. I don't need the CD shredding feature, since the only ones I toss out generally say "AOL" on them.


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## newo (Feb 25, 2005)

*Re: What\'s A Good Paper Shredder?*

You used to be able to buy civilian version crosscut shredders that did about 1/8" x 3/16", but the last time I went looking, about six months ago, all I could find were small strips in various sizes. As *paulr* suggests, smaller is better. But smaller also means that the shredder clogs more frequently. And shredders for classified material are available that reduce the material down quite a bit smaller than 1/16 x 1/2.

The whole shredder thing got to be such a pain in the neck for DoD that several years ago, in one of its interminable renovation programs, a captive burn center was built contiguous to the Pentagon. Of course, shredding followed by burning, or chemically treating the shreddings turning the shreds into paper pulp is more secure still.

It all depends on what threat you are trying to defeat. Most folks are simply trying to make it difficult for an opportunistic dumpster-diver to easily grab their SSAN and some account numbers. 

Personally, I happen to believe that perfect, and near-perfect, personal security in today's world of data-miners and sophisticated computer database intrusion techniques is an illusion. People with those capabilities can get your stuff even if you leave absolutely no paper trail.

The best you can do is to make it difficult enough for the opportunistic dumpster-diver to get your stuff that he / she / it moves on to an easier, softer, target than you. A decent shredder is a good start. 

If you desire more physical security than that, get a fine meshed metal outdoor fire enclosure on a metal base, like they sell seasonally at various places as an outdoor fireplace, or protected leaf burner. Create a burn bag by dumping your shreddings into a brown paper bag, fold the top over, staple it so it stays closed while it burns (don't want any unburned paper confetti floating around), and put it in your outdoor burning enclosure. Mix a martini. Take it out to your homemade burn facility, light the thing off, and consume your martini whilst making sure it all burns. Dump the ashes into a metal bucket or something similar. Throw a garden hose on it, and using an old paint stirrer, mix well, breaking up what is left of the ash. Then pour the ash slurry out into your garden and work it into the soil.

That is about as secure as the average guy can make himself. And it is more trouble than most folks are willing to go through to get that security. 

Ergo, a crosscut shredder.


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## auriga (Feb 25, 2005)

*Re: What\'s A Good Paper Shredder?*

Shredders are classified with DIN 32757, for credit card statements and other confidential information you should use Level 3-5.
Level 3 is strip cut 1.9 mm or cross cut 3.9 x 30 - 50 mm. 
Here's a web page if you want to read about the DIN standard.
http://ispdnews.com/content/view/3/2/


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## Lurker (Feb 25, 2005)

*Re: What\'s A Good Paper Shredder?*

I scrimped and got a strip cutter instead of a cross cut. Mistake. The trash bin fills up instantly with strip cut pieces. The cross cut pieces take up a lot less space and are therefore a lot more convenient. Not to mention more secure.


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## X33 (Feb 25, 2005)

*Re: What\'s A Good Paper Shredder?*

I agree. I think a personal shredder is mainly to deter the opportunistic thief going thru rubbish. Cross cut is better. But again I don't think spending huge sums on a finer cut shredder will make that much of a difference. Once they see the confetti, they'll move on to someone elses rubbish. Instead of starting to puzzle.


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## Wingerr (Feb 25, 2005)

*Re: What\'s A Good Paper Shredder?*

And flushing the pieces down the loo won't do, as Penguin in Batman showed- /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif


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## Glenn (Feb 25, 2005)

*Re: What\'s A Good Paper Shredder?*

If you only have a small amount of sensitive shredded material:
Put it in with you "wet" garbage bag with a twist tie or
with your cat litter box discards. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/eeew.gif

Glenn


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## Wingerr (Feb 25, 2005)

*Re: What\'s A Good Paper Shredder?*

Bleech... you could probably even dispose of hard currency that way /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif I sure ain't diving in for it!


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## Skyline (Feb 25, 2005)

*Re: What\'s A Good Paper Shredder?*

Just got myself a Primera DS360 CD/DVD shredder for $120 from Amazon. I've been accumulating old discs (backups, coasters, etc) and didn't feel comfortable just tossing them out. Boy, if you think paper shredding is fun, CD/DVD shredding takes it to a whole 'nother level. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif


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## Wingerr (Feb 26, 2005)

*Re: What\'s A Good Paper Shredder?*

That must make interesting confetti- any good uses for it? Potted plants? /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif
I would think just snapping the disk in two would do the job of securing it. I suppose someone could conceivably have some fixed scanner that could extract the information from the broken pieces, but they would have to want it really, really, really bad (to quote Zoolander) to do that.


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## [email protected] (Feb 26, 2005)

*Re: What\'s A Good Paper Shredder?*




/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/tongue.gif


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## jbfla (Feb 26, 2005)

*Re: What\'s A Good Paper Shredder?*

I also have one of the Royal Crosscut VF1000 shredders from SAMS Club. It does a good job of chewing up paper and credit cards, and makes CDs unreadable...very pleased with it.

JB


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## Skyline (Feb 26, 2005)

*Re: What\'s A Good Paper Shredder?*

[ QUOTE ]
*Wingerr said:*
That must make interesting confetti- any good uses for it? Potted plants? /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif
I would think just snapping the disk in two would do the job of securing it. I suppose someone could conceivably have some fixed scanner that could extract the information from the broken pieces, but they would have to want it really, really, really bad (to quote Zoolander) to do that. 

[/ QUOTE ]

The confetti is quite interesting! Lots of fluffy foil like bits. It doesn't quite cut up into little rectangles. Looks more like someone took some dynamite to a stack of CDs.

Yeah, I've also consider breaking them in half, but hard to do that to a hundred of them. Also considered Krazy Glue'ing them all into one solid block, lol!

This way is too fun though. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/blush.gif


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## PhotonWrangler (Feb 26, 2005)

*Re: What\'s A Good Paper Shredder?*

If you have small children at home, check the paper intake and make sure that the plastic trim aroujnd it is tight enough and RIGID enough to prevent young children and/or pets from getting their fingers or tongues stuck in them!
/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/ooo.gif


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## Wingerr (Feb 26, 2005)

*Re: What\'s A Good Paper Shredder?*

[ QUOTE ]
*Skyline said:*
Yeah, I've also consider breaking them in half, but hard to do that to a hundred of them. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/blush.gif 

[/ QUOTE ]

Wow- just how many do you go through, if that's the coaster portion? If I had a hundred to destroy, I think I'd consider going sledge-o-matic on them just for the fun of it. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif


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## paulr (Feb 26, 2005)

*Re: What\'s A Good Paper Shredder?*

I've broken a few cd's in half and I don't recommend it. The polycarbonate flexes over pretty far and then snaps somewhat violently, getting shards all over the place, along with little flakes of foil that peel off of the shards. Cutting the cd with a tin snips or heavy duty shear works a lot better. Sooner or later I'll get one of those shredders. Note that if you have super sensitive stuff on the cd, even tiny crumbs from a shredded CD might be able to reveal some of the data using a microscope. It's best to encrypt the contents before writing to the cd, if you need ultra security. http://gnupg.org is a good free file encryption program though it doesn't encrypt the whole cd file system in a way that you can mount and use it normally.


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## ChayidShred (Sep 28, 2015)

I will suggest you to look online on amazon or ebay and find shredder according to your range, Read reviews so you can get better in cheaper price.

Regards


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