Shredders

[Mike Tomlinson]

In article , Andy Dingley writes

Bloody hell. Wouldn't want to get your fingers caught in that.

[Martin Pentreath]

Do some research before you do. I seem to remember that shredders are quite fussy about lubricants, and using the wrong stuff can mess them up. I know I have some sort of special shredder oil for mine. Then again it could just be that I have "gullible" tatooed on my forehead ;-)

[Andy Dingley]

I used to think it was big, but these days I'm more likely to be using a log chipper and _those_ are impressive.

There's a machine down the road that does fridges. Something like 80% of UK fridges, so I hear.

[Ian Stirling]

I've had good results with

Bosch ATX2200 electric shredder (garden shredder).

To shred paper. Take paper, soak in water for a couple of days (a squirt of detergent helps to wet) Turn bucket upside down so it's no longer in water, and allow to drip for another couple of days. Now, roughly tear a magazine sized bit of paper in half, and roughly roll up before poking in the chute.

You want a beeeg tub on the output. Then you take the output and put it through again.

This is much less painful than a 'normal' shredder. Add 50% paper, 50% green waste, also shredded, and it composts really fast.

[Steven Campbell]

Surely that is an error? 5 sheets an hour! You'd be quicker eating the bloody things ;o)

We bought one from Lidls a few years back and it regularly deals with 30 minute sessions of hundreds of sheets. It does cut itself off when used on one of these sessions but turns back on 5 or 10 minutes later. Never jams and basically just works the way it should. I think it was around £15, a definite bargain.

[Lobster]

The other day was quite illuminating for me in terms of the difference between my old strip-shredder and better cross-cut models.

I'd got a bit overexcited with my shredding and accidentally put one of those bank card PIN notification letters through before making a note of the number (erm, I mean committing it to memory). Damn, I thought, that'll take ages at the moment for them to send a new one out, so I emptied out the shredder bin contents. Took me no more than about 10 mins to get my PIN back.

Admittedly I knew exactly what I was after, but even so...

David

[Chris J Dixon]

I have heard that, in the sort of organisation that needs to do this stuff, it is possible to scan the fragments and have them joined together by software.

Chris

[ARWadsworth]

Even the Iranians managed to put back together US documents that had been cross shredded by the US embassy. It took them years.

[A.Clews]

Thus spake Bill ( [e-mail]) unto the assembled multitudes:

You could always burn then in an incinerator bin, then you can roast some chestnuts at the same time, neatly tying in with the festive season :-)

[A.Clews]

Thus spake mike ( [e-mail]) unto the assembled multitudes:

Lidl, but I wouldn't mind betting that the mechanism is the same and it just has a different look and badge.

[A.Clews]

Thus spake ARWadsworth ( [e-mail]) unto the assembled multitudes:

That'll teach them not to have kept a compost heap in the embassy back garden :-)

[Mike Tomlinson]

In article , Andy Dingley writes

I saw a photo not so long ago of some woman who got her hand caught in a shredder. Not a pretty sight and brain bleach hasn't helped.

What do they do with the resultant mess?

[Andrew Gabriel]

My first job after uni was on a site where we had different grade shredders for different security level documents. I once found my boss feeding a box of fanfold paper I had simply chucked out (not to be shredded at all) through the highest security shredder, and was rather puzzled as I thought it was completely unclassified. My boss explained that the kids needed some more hamster bedding, and that shedder generated something resembling cotten wool, which was ideal when generated from the cheap absorbent fanfold paper we used at the time.

[pete]

The truly paranoid organisations will also pad-out their secured waste, so that they dispose of roughly the same amount each day/week. if they didn't then the mere fact that at some times they produce more secure waste than at other times is, itself, a security breach.