I have a half-dozen large boxes of old papers that I need to get rid of. These are things that really ought to get shredded: bank statements, canceled checks, pay stubs, utility bills, etc, etc. Most are still in the envelopes they were mailed in, and all are over 5 years old. I could buy a shredder, open each envelope, and run them through, but this would be VERY time-consuming, and that’s a bigger bother to me than the $30 I’d spend on a cheap shredder (which would probably overheat before I was done anyway).
Can someone suggest an easier alternative? I tried putting a bunch in the bathtub with hot water, hoping that they’d turn to mush overnight, but this was not nearly as effective as I had hoped. Maybe if I put some bleach into the water it would work better? Or some other material that I could get in a supermarket? (I am quite willing to take the mush and put it in my trash. I do NOT want to flush it away and screw up the plumbing. I just want some way that I can put these papers in the trash and not worry that someone will find my Soc Sec number or such.)
Perhaps this question belongs in another area because I’m looking for advice. But I don’t care so much about the BEST way to do this. I just want suggestions for ANY way to do this.
Have an Office Depot nearby? They do shredding. Might be worthwhile to give them what they want and be done with it. When my Mom was moving she had three suitcases full of papers she would not let us throw away without shredding. Burned up one shredder and damaged another.
It isn’t necessarily that cheap, but you can rent heavy-duty shredders or hire people with what amounts to a shredder garbage truck. It is a pretty standard service for businesses.
I don’t know if this is helpful. It seems like piling the papers into a publicly accessible dumpster is a bit of a security risk on the front end, though once it gets into the pile for incineration it would be safe.
But the video does bring up a good point. You might want to check with your local dump to see if they have some cheap facilities for handling things like this.
do not burn in your fireplace. burning paper floats and it could start a chimney fire. if you burn outdoors then follow regulations because you can cause fires. cities may not allow outdoor burning. in the country you can burn when the fire risk is low and use a burn barrel (only 1/2" openings all around).
some government or other paper recycling may have days when a monster shredder can do paper by the bushel.
I called Staples to ask about their shredding service because I am in the same situation as the OP.
They told me they contract out to a third-party and they will hold my documents until they have enough to call the company to come out, and then they’ll be shredded. I just think of their back room filled with people’s documents just sitting there in boxes, and so I decided not to go there. I don’t know if Home Depot is the same, so you might want to call first.
So I am still sitting with all this paper and hoping for a solution. Our bank has shred days around tax time, so I guess I will wait until April.
Usually if an outside service is doing it the documents go into a locked bin so I wouldn’t worry about it. I’m sure they will show you the bin. Remember, they have some responsibility and incentive to make sure that the documents are secure until shredded. At my nearby Staples the cost is $.79/lb. and paper is heavy so it’s not necessarily cheap.
If you burn outside you are going to have to feed the paper to the fire or stir the fire a lot. The attention you have to give the fire is probably about the same as the time it takes to shred it. At least the shred can be recycled. Paper is a good insulator so a tightly stacked pile of paper probably won’t burn all the way through.
What’s wrong with the idea in the OP? Put it in the bathtub with water and bleach, let it soak overnight, and dumb in the trash the next day. If you can’t burn because you live in a city, you are worried about leaving it with Staples or Home Depot, etc etc then go with with your original plan. Seems like the easiest way to me.
Our local assisted-employment place (they hire people with mental disabilities) shreds paper for 14 cents a pound. Maybe you have something like that near you.
I was hoping some might already have tried it, and be able to offer ideas on how much bleach to use, or if some other chemical might be better. 79 cents per pound is way too expensive; with 6 filing-size boxes, I probably have about 100-200 pounds. I guess I’ll have to experiment.
Is there any connection to a nationwide organization that might be doing this in a lot of chapters? If you can steer me in a direction? I would like to pursue it. Like the OP, I have a lot of paper that needs shredding. $.14/lb is fine with me.
I don’t think there is anything easier than shredding. I also think you’re overestimating how difficult shredding it. You don’t need to take the documents out of their envelopes to shred them, you can just run the whole thing through the shredder. You only need to take things out of the envelopes if it’s too many pages/too thick to run through the shredder at once.
No need for acid. Just a big garbage pail or barrel, water, and bleach if you want. The water alone will do the job in a few days. Go out and mash it around with a stick. You’ll have a big barrel full of pulp.
Leave it in the sunlight to dry. You’ll have a big barrel full of dry pulp.
Take that to the dump (or, y’know, just put it out with your regular trash, maybe a little at a time. Or take it, a gallon at a time, to a public trash can, at a park or shopping center.
I paid the ten cents per pound to have it professionally shredded.
About two hours ago, I filled the basement sink (next to the washing machine) with hot water and a quart of bleach. While it was filling, I added a handful of envelopes at a time. It took only fifteen minutes for an entire “bankers box” of mail, and the paper was very evenly distributed. Two hours later, every single piece is thoroughly wet and easy to tear, even many sheets at once. But they’re not mushy and disintegrating as I hoped, rather it is still very easy to peel each page apart from the next one. I’ll see how they are 12 hours from now, in the morning. If I’m not satisfied, I’ll probably go with Trinopus’s garbage pail idea - that way I can let it sit for several days and still be able to use my clothes washer.
Lamia - I agree that shredding is easy, but for the amount of stuff that I have, it is far too time-consuming. I did have my own shredder a few years back, and it did 10 pages at a time, no need to open the envelopes. But I’m talking literally hundreds - probably thousands - of envelopes. And don’t forget to allow time to empty the bucket, and time for jams and odd paper sizes and other annoyances. It adds up to many many long hours. Absolutely no way I’ll do that again. I’d rather take my chances with the identity thieves.
How can I find a service like that? I googled “paper shredding service”, and found a LOT of services that seem pretty conveniently located, and NONE of the eight that I looked at gave any information about their prices.
