Metal Recycling: Everything You Need to Know

A Buyer's Guide to Shredding Machines

22 November 2021

Melissa Stanley

Document shredding has many benefits. Most importantly, shredding protects your customers, employees, and business from the risks of identity theft resulting from accidental information exposure. What's more, it also promotes compliance with existing privacy laws and is a way of responsible recycling. Therefore, as part of proper information management, you may consider investing in a document shredding machine, whether at home or office. While choosing a document shredder shouldn't be complex, finding the right one requires careful consideration of several factors because shredders are rarely multipurpose, so you must choose one that's best suited for your needs. Therefore, here is a quick guide to help you select correctly.

Consider Paper Size and Load Size

What paper sizes do you intend to shred, and what volume of papers or documents are you shredding? Answering these simple questions is the first step to finding the ideal shredder for your use. Shredders are typically designed for specific paper sizes. Therefore, assess your needs and determine the paper or document sizes you use most. It may not always be possible to have a standard size of papers or documents in your office. Therefore, for cases where you have a few larger documents, folding them to match the size of your smaller standard-sized documents can do the trick.

On the other hand, it's also crucial to have an idea of the volume of documents you intend to shred per given time. Therefore, assess your needs and go for a shredding machine that can handle the demand you have at hand.

Look at the Cut Type

The cut type is another critical component worth keeping in mind when selecting a shredding machine because the cut type can affect the security of your shredded documents. Generally, the two primary cut types are cross-cuts and strip cuts or straight cuts. As the names imply, strip-cut shredding machines result in long strips of shredded material. On the other hand, cross-cut shredders produce tiny papers particles because they work in a back-and-forth fashion. With that in mind, cross-cut shredding machines tend to be more secure than their straight-cut counterparts because reassembling the tiny paper particles is much more complex.

Consider the Materials You Are Shredding

Many documents contain non-paper items. For instance, removing items like staples or paper clips from your documents before shredding can be time-consuming and impractical. Therefore, go for a shredding machine that can work on non-paper items too to make the whole process hassle-free.

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