People buy paper shredders for one reason; to make documents with sensitive information unreadable. There are a few techniques that are used by paper shredder manufacturers to accomplish this goal.

1.) How the document is shredded

The cheapest effective means to destroy a document is the strip-cut method. The shredder cuts the document in tiny vertical slices. This method is sufficient for most consumers. The other popular choice is the cross-cut shred, which cuts the document both vertically and horizontally. The cross-cut method also conserves space in the shredder bin while the strip-cut shredder bin becomes full at a quicker rate. This saves time by changing the shredder bin less, making it a wise choice for large shred jobs.

2.) The quantity of documents to shred

Industrial paper shredders are made for a continuous and/or large volume of shredding. These are used primarily by large companies. The average consumer should only require a low cost strip or cross-cut shredder

3.) The sensitivity of the document to shred

The cross-cut shred is used for highly sensitive information since strip-cut shredded documents are easier to reassemble.

As a consumer, the choices should be pretty clean on what shredder to purchase. The only remaining factor would be to make note of each name brand’s warranties and history of reliability. Some of the most popular shredder name brands are Destroyit, Fellowes, GBC, and Whitaker Brothers.

Destroyit shredders range from $180 for the low volume shredder all the way up to the top of the line which meets the D.O.D. and NSA/CSS 02-01 mandatory security requirements for the destruction of TOP SECRET, COMSEC and SCI paper material priced over $5000. Fellowes offers a few shredders below $100 and cap off at around $2500. GBC has around the same price range as Fellowes. Whitaker Brothers appears to be the ‘big dog’ brand with a wide selection of high volume, high security shredders tipping the scales at prices around $10,000.

Happy Shredding!