They make paper shredders that shred paper to different sizes, and the smaller it shreds the paper, the more expensive the paper shredder. Presumably this is because it would be harder to reassemble the paper if it's shredded smaller.
I find myself wondering if you could also make it more difficult for someone who wanted to reassemble the paper by diluting the shredded paper. What if only 10% of the paper you shredded was important documents that actually needed to be shredded, and 90% of it was random unimportant documents?
What if you physically mixed up the shredded paper before dumping it in recycling? What if you put shredded paper from the same batch of shredding in multiple recycling containers?
Before I owned a paper shredder, I'd rip up sensitive documents and put parts of them (usually the parts with my name) in with my kitchen garbage. I figurde if someone is going to dig through the dumpsters and try to reassemble my documents, I can at least make it as unpleasant as possible. What if you put a portion of the shredded paper in the green bin? (Apparently paper in the green bin is allowed - my parents use newspapers to line their organics garbage can, then throw the whole piece of newspaper in the green bin with the garbage enclosed.)
I don't know if the additional security gained from doing any of these things would be worth the effort, but it's fun to think of ideas.
4 comments:
Aside from ripping, you could also burn the part where the important information is. Or, you could recycle those ripped papers for paper mache. Paper shredders are the easiest and fastest way to recycle paper.
- WilliamsDataManagement.com
I used to do those things, too, before I bought a small shredder.
In Mississauga, we can put shredded paper in the green/organics bin, so I end up dumping the shredder's contents into that anyway. Makes me wonder if the shredder is even necessary, since who's going to look through smelly, squishy, decomposing organic waste to get my sensitive documents?
You could also put it in with the dog poo, to make it even more unpleasant.
Indeed. Our regular trash is more than 50% dog poo. Anyone rooting around in there is in for a rude shock, especially in the summer!
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