What to do with your shreddings

These days, everybody needs a paper shredder. And not just something that turns your private papers into long strips of spaghetti. You need a proper confetti shredder (also known as a cross-cut shredder) that turns them into 2 inch long snippets.

A lot of people seem to think that identity theft is a recent phenomena but it’s been going on for a long time. Over twenty years ago, a friend of mine received a department store credit card statement for $2000 of home appliances that she hadn’t bought. It turned out that someone had stolen a couple of utility bills off her doorstep and applied for a store-card in her name. I think what angered her the most was that she’d previously been turned down for credit by the same store! That was over twenty years ago and I’m sure that other people have similar tales going back as far as the concept of ‘credit’.

If you’re the sort of thoughtful individual who worries about identity theft then I suspect you might also be the sort of thoughtful individual who worries about the environment and wants to recycle your papers, plastics, tins, bottles etc. – like me.

But what can I do with my shredded paper?

I can’t tip it into the sack for mixed papers because it’ll all blow away. I can’t put it in a plastic bag because that gets recycled separately. It seems counter-productive to buy paper sacks to put it in. And I don’t want to throw it out with the household garbage.

I’ve found the perfect solution… cereal boxes. When the shredder is half full I get an empty cereal box, fill it with shreddings, tape up the top and put it out with the mixed papers. The perfect solution and super simple!