Choosing a Paper Shredder for Professional Use: Questions to Ask Yourself

Are you in the market for a paper shredder for professional use? If you are, there are some questions to ask yourself so you'll end up with the best device for your needs. These are the questions....

• "What do we need to shred?" This is probably the most important question to ask yourself because you absolutely need a machine that can handle your materials. As a general rule, just about all shredders can handle paper (there are some exceptions but they're not very common), but not all devices can handle items like staples, credit cards, CD's, DVD's, floppy disks, etc. There are special multimedia units available if your business stores a lot of your information on electronic media and they can be very handy to have around. So make sure you think about what you need to shred before investing in a device.

• "How many departments need to have access to a shredder?" The main reason organizations and businesses use shredders is to keep employee and customer information safe. It's very easy for a data breach to occur if the only paper disposal options are recycling and the garbage. Some of the things you need to keep under wraps include Social Security numbers, employee files, medical information (if applicable), banking data, and more. If you don't carefully dispose of some of these items, you might even find yourself in legal trouble thanks to federal privacy regulations such as the Fair and Accurate Credit Transactions Act (FACTA). Thus, every department should have at least one shredder in it so those private documents can stay private.

• "About how many people will be using this thing? How often?" It's really important to choose the right number of shredders and to do that, you need to calculate how many people will need to use it. A small, deskside unit might be good for one or two people, but it's not going to cut it if the department has a lot of people in it. Luckily, shredders come in a variety of sizes including huge ones that can run continuously and store 20 to 30 gallons of shreds. (Some machines can even hold more than than.) You also want to consider how often they're going to be used. It never hurts to get more shredders than you need. This will make sure all of your bases are covered.

• "What level of security will I need?" Finally, you need to consider the amount of security your business or organization needs. Security is measured on a scale of 1 to 6. Level 1 machines offer the least amount of security but they're still good for the general shredding of junk mail and receipts. Level 6 devices tend to receive Department of Defense approval so they can be used to destroy the most confidential of documents. Devices with the higher security rating are usually cross-cut machines that turn paper and other items into tiny particles. The machines offering less security tend to be strip-cut models that turn paper into spaghetti-like pieces. So be sure of these distinctions when choosing your device.

These are the questions to ask yourself when choosing a shredder for professional use. Carefully considering them will help you make the best decision. Good luck!

About the Author: Jeff McRitchie is the Director of Marketing for MyBinding.com. He regularly writes articles, reviews, and blog posts on topics related to bookbinding, laminating, paper shredding, and office equipment. More than 2,500 of his articles have been published in thousands of locations on the Internet. If you're looking for information about paper shredders his articles are a great place to start.