Best Paper Shredder: How to Choose the Shredder That's Right For You

You already know you need a paper shredder. Buzz words like identity theft protection and HIPAA and FACTA compliance have been floating around long enough to catch your attention. You want to keep yourself, your employees and your customers from being counted among the more than 900,000 victims of identity theft each year. Now what? With hundreds of shredders on the market how do you choose the right shredder for your individual needs?

Answering a few simple questions about your shredding needs will give you the necessary tools to find the paper shredder that's right for you.

How many people will use the shredder every day? Will it be the members of your household or will it be your entire staff or department?

How much paper will you shred in a day? This will be partly determined by the number of people using the same shredder and may vary from one sheet to hundreds of sheets.

How large is the paper you will most commonly be shredding? The throat of a shredder is the opening documents must fit through and varies in size from a standard 9" throat to a wide 16" or larger throat.

What level of security are you looking for? Strip cut, cross cut, confetti cut and CD shredders all offer different levels of security by shredding paper, CDs, credit cards or floppy disks into long strips, small pieces, or unidentifiable particles.

Paper shredders are broken up into categories based on their power and capacity. The most common classifications are home, office, commercial or departmental and industrial. Within these categories you can also find specialty CD shredders and high security shredders. The following categories break down paper shredders according to the features listed above.

Home Paper Shredders

If all you have to shred are personal bank statements, receipts, cancelled checks and some junk mail, you need a personal home shredder. Designed for light use, a home paper shredder typically accommodates the light duty shredding needs of one to two people and accepts 3 to 10 sheets of standard sized paper at once. Home paper shredders are available in strip cut and cross cut models. Strip cut shredders quickly shed documents into long strips of paper. A cross cut shredder typically shreds fewer sheets of paper at a slower rate, but offers more security, leaving nothing larger than a 2" x 1/4" piece of paper. Home paper shredders are available with durable cutting heads that accept staples and paper clips and are often no larger than a small trash can.

More and more families are using paper shredders in their homes and manufacturers are striving to make home paper shredders child-safe by installing smaller openings and adding off switches. Fellowes has come out with a light duty shredder with "safe sense" technology that will keep the fingers of your little ones safe by immediately stopping the shredder when the paper entry is touched. Some models also have unique safety locks to prevent the shredder from accidentally being turned on.

Office Paper Shredders

It's not only smart for small offices and small business owners to use a paper shredder, it's the law. The FACTA Disposal Law requires all businesses and employers to properly dispose of the personal records they collect from employees and consumers. HIPAA regulations require healthcare facilities and the businesses that contract with them to protect the privacy of their patients by properly disposing of records. Designed to guard against identity theft and to protect patient confidentiality, FACTA and HIPAA make shredding a necessity for a business of any size.

Office paper shredders are designed to meet the shredding needs of several users, typically handling up to three cases of paper per day, 10 to 35 sheets at a time. Office shredders are available with a range of throat sizes from 9" to 15" to handle paper of all sizes. Some strip cut office shredders have the ability to also shred CDs, credit cards and floppy disks. Cross cut office shredders increase the level of security by reducing your documents to pieces as small as 1/16" x 9/16".

Commercial Paper Shredders

Commercial shredders are designed to shred up to 80 sheets of paper at once. Wide throats up to 16" and larger handle paper of any size. These heavy duty shredders are available in strip cut or cross cut models and easily shred through staples and paper clips and often handle CDs, credit cards and floppy disks. Some commercial shredders are available with hoppers and conveyor belt feed systems to automate the shredding of large volumes of paper.

Industrial Paper Shredders

In-house industrial paper shredders are designed to meet the shredding needs of several departments or even an entire facility in the most cost effective, convenient and secure manner possible. Industrial shredders are engineered for maximum performance, handling up to 140 sheets of paper at once and up to 1000 pounds of paper products per hour. With extra wide throats to handle virtually all paper sizes and high volume waste containers, industrial shredders can meet the most demanding shredding needs. These heavy duty shredders are available in strip cut, cross cut or CD shredding models. Many industrial shredders come with hoppers, conveyor belts and balers to increase efficiency and reduce the volume of waste produced.

Special industrial shredders, known as cardboard shredders, turn cardboard boxes into packing material by perforating, shredding and padding the cardboard with specially designed cutting mechanisms.

CD Shredders

Designed to safely shred CDs, DVDs, credit cards and floppy disks with specially hardened solid steel cutting cylinders, CD shredders are essential for secure digital data disposal. CD shredders vary in terms of power and capacity from light office duty CD shredders all the way up to industrial heavy duty CD shredders. When choosing a CD shredder, first determine whether you need an office, commercial, high security or industrial shredder, then choose a CD shredder from the appropriate category. CD shredders are available in strip cut and commercial size cross cut models to meet your specific security needs.

High Security and Government Use Paper Shredders

When you have top secret documents to dispose of, a high security shredder offers superior shredding security by reducing documents to unreadable particles. To receive the classification of high security, a shredder must be able to reduce a letter sized document to 6,000 pieces or more. For even more security, Level 6 NSA and CSS approved shredders are required to reduce a letter sized document to 12,000 particles or more. Due to the extremely small shred size, high security shredders typically only accept up to 14 sheets of paper at once. Depending on the document size and the volume of high security shredding you have to do, you can choose a high security shredder with an office sized waste basket and standard 9" throat or a shredder with a large commercial sized waste container and wide 16" throat.