I see locked bins for documents to shred. Are they secure? Are they reliable?
Supposedly, but I personally don’t trust them. I often see them filled to the brim with papers you could reach in and grab. I’ve used them out of desperation for non sensitive documents, but anything with my social, ID numbers or banking info I like to see it being shredded. I like to take our documents to the free shred events in our community where they actually have the shred truck on site, and I can see them being shredded.
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That’s what Iwas afraid of. No community events scheduled near me at the moment. Is there a service where they shred right there in front of you? I’ve been shredding and my shredder is about to give out with no end in sight.
I also typically use the free shredder events where you can watch them shred the paper
in front of you. But 2 weekends ago we participated in a corporate challenge that was being held for earth day, and brought 2 carloads of stuff to be recycled (!!!) including several boxes of sensitive materials. When we got there, it turned out that they took everything and weighed it, then carted it off to be sorted and the paper shredded later!!! I was uncomfortable with this and asked when the paper would be shredded , and they assured me they if it wasn’t done that day, the materials are locked up securely to be shredded later. At that point I had no choice but was still uneasy. Funny (well not really, but…) when we got home, our large screen tv in the family room died! So we bought and installed a new tv and made an appt to go back down to this recycling place last weekend to take the dead tv, the box and packing from the new 65” tv and an old tower computer that we had to pull the hard drive from so didn’t take it the previous weekend. It cost $20 to recycle this stuff, but that was fine. And it looked like all the stuff from the previous weekend (including all the paper to be shredded) was gone. Still a tad uneasy, but somewhat more comfortable.
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I think most shred companies have mobile on-site service available. It’s more expensive; if you have a lot of boxes, it may be worth it.
Depending on how much you have, you can submerge your documents in water in the kitchen sink. I do that - put a handful at a time, and run water over them. The ink runs, and after a few minutes you can ball them up and throw them away. Nobody is getting anything out of that wet ball of paper, lol.
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Excellent! I just did one. Fun but I got too much for that to be practical.
@Tigerwife92 How much does it cost for them to come out roughly? I am guessing there’s a coming-out fee and some. I called them to get an idea but they wouldn’t give that out unless I provided name, address, email, and other info.
I tried searching as well; they seem to be pretty tight lipped on their websites. I did find this on thumbtack:
"Here is an example of average one-time residential or smaller-scale commercial document destruction costs:
On-site job of up to 10 boxes: $125 from Paper Cuts, Inc. in San Fernando, California. Minimum charge of $125 for mobile service."
Most shred companies shred by the pound. There are companies that come to you, but those are usually for businesses. There are also companies where you take the papers to them. The one near me doesn’t make you remove paperclips, binder clips or binding, which is wonderful when going through old documents; they will shred while you are there.
I am luckily in that our city recycling center is around the corner from me, and they have a shred station which is free. I am limited to 2 bankers boxes a day, so when I did my dad’s clean out, I was there many days. While they dump the documents in a locked container, I am sure everyone there has access to the key, but they shred daily at 2:00. If you want to watch your documents be shredded, you just come between 2:00-4:00.
When I was still working I just took everything to our work bins as we had monthly pickup as it was a medical clinic; now I go to the recycling center. Google residential shredding; I am sure you will find somewhere to go.
Office Depot also does shredding and can do in store or pick up:
Looks like it is 0.99 per pound in store and One-time shred pick-up service of 1-3 boxes is. $89.99
Some UPS stores also do shredding, so might check there.
I took a paper bag full to my local UPS store; it was a dollar something a pound. I watched them put it in the shredder behind the counter.
For northern Chicago suburbs, we took a few boxes of my mom’s papers here when clearing out her condo:
Documents can be “drowned” in large containers—add water, stir, and after awhile pour any water not absorbed out. The ink will run and paper will stick together.
We once had a town thing with a locked bin - like that day.
Except it wasn’t locked and I brought my stuff home.
It took a long time but I shredded in little crappy one I bought at Costco.
This would be tedious for large batches. But one trick is to rip the identifying info (name, address, and heaven forbid the old docs with SSN) of the top - tear up and put in yukky trash (or shred). Recycle the id-less part of the sheet.
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