How to choose a shredder

Whether you’re concerned about privacy or simply looking for a way to reduce waste bulk, you need to make sure that you choose the shredder that’s right for you.  With this helpful guide, you’ll learn more about shredder capabilities, from the different types of cuts to the wide range of materials that can be shredded.

Volume

The first consideration when buying a shredder is determining how much material you need to shred, and how often you need to do it.  In general, people tend to shred twice as much as they think they do, so it’s helpful to make a generous estimate -- you don’t want to burn out a shredder’s motor by overloading it, after all.

• Light/Personal:  If you only shred 10-20 documents per day, consider a light-duty shredder, also called a personal shredder.  These compact machines are ideal for occasional use, and usually fit neatly over small waste bins.
• Medium:  Designed to shred 25-50 documents per day, medium-duty shredders are well-suited for one or two users in a small office.  While they are somewhat bulkier than light-duty machines, they still operate quickly and quietly.
• Heavy:  Heavy-duty shredders are capable of servicing up to five users, and can shred 50-100 documents a day.  Ideally placed where multiple users can access it, a heavy-duty shredder allows a small office to fulfill all their shredding needs in a single location, and thanks to durable steel cutters, heavy-duty shredders can even handle documents with paperclips or staples attached.
• Continuous:  These commercial-grade shredders are designed to handle any volume of documents, and are often used in environments such as law offices or medical offices, where personal records need to be destroyed safely.  Able to service as many as ten users, these machines tend to be bulkier and somewhat noisier than lower-capacity models, in exchange for their higher output.

Cut type

Depending on security concerns, there are several cut styles available, so that you can assure the proper degree of safety and privacy for your clients or patients.

• Strip Cut:  The most basic cut, strip cutters shred a document into ¼” strips.  While this significantly cuts down on waste bulk, it provides the lowest level of security, so if privacy is a major concern, this style is probably insufficient.
• Confetti Cut:  By utilizing multiple cutting surfaces, a confetti-cut shredder will reduce an 8½ x 11 sheet to approximately 300 small chunks.  This allows for even more compact waste than strip cutters, and enhanced security.
• Micro-cut:  If you’re looking for a more secure shredder than a confetti-cut, consider a micro-cut shredder.  By shredding an 8½ x 11 sheet into more than 3,500 pieces, these machines will satisfy all but the most stringent security concerns.
• High-security Cut:  For the ultimate in confidentiality, a high-security micro-cut shredder will make it nearly impossible to reassemble a shredded document.  Perfect for highly sensitive information, these shredders offer the highest level of privacy.

Other considerations

When making your final decisions, it’s important to consider such things as how many simultaneous sheets your shredder can handle, or what materials the shredder can dispose of.  The following are some of the more common things to look for in a shredder:

• Capacity:  Some shredders are designed to shred only one sheet at a time, while others will allow you to feed in small stacks to be shredded.  If you have high volumes of documents to be shredded, consider a higher sheet capacity to improve efficiency.
• Throughput:  By combining the capacity with the speed of the shredder, this figure allows you to determine the maximum number of sheets you can shred in one minute.  Many shredders list this figure for your convenience, so you can make an informed decision.
• Throat width:  The wider the throat of the shredder, the larger the sheets it can accommodate.  Additionally, wider throats mean you can send more disorganized stacks of paper through the shredder, which means less time sorting them out.
• Special materials:  While many high-capacity shredders can handle such things as staples or paperclips, some heavy-duty shredders are equipped to destroy less conventional materials, such as CDs or credit cards.  Consider the types of objects you need to shred, and choose a shredder accordingly.
• Going green:  Many shredders are always-on, meaning that even when they’re not actively being used to shred documents, they’re still drawing (and therefore wasting) electricity.  However, if you choose a shredder with an automatic sleep feature, it will shut itself off when not in use, leading to lowered energy waste.