Destroying Papers

Rhino

I had this big bad ass paper shredder that set me back quite a bit of money. It was great for cross shredding sensitives documents (credit card bills, etc). Unfortunately the thing broke after years of abuse.

The cheap shredders are a pain to deal with and the good ones cost quite a bit of money. I was wondering is there any alternatives to shredding paper?

Around here we ain't allowed to burn trash nor do I have a fire place.

The other option I was thinking, was throw all the paper in a bucket of water and let it turn into a sludge of paper pulp. Would that work? How long would it take? Would any chemicals help speed up the process?

Any other ideas?

Midshipman

Bleach would definitely help destroy the strength of the paper.

Psychotic One

Liquid plumber would probably devour paper pulp quickly. Not exactly sure how you are planning to dispose of your sludge.

I imagine any sort of bleach or degreasing agent should sufficently destroy basic paper and letterhead.

You could get a cheap paper shreader and use a power drill with a cutting bit. Put it all in a bucket and use the drill to stir and tear the paper up. Should make it impossible to put anything back together.

Hevach

If it's small amounts, individual documents here and there, you can burn it with a lighter in a pot on the stove just fine. Turn on your vapor hood if you have one and you might not even set off smoke detectors.

As for the water idea, any hydroxide drain cleaner should speed the process. You'd be surprised how hard it can be to dissolve some papers. A lot of places seem to print important stuff on magical super paper from space. I've accidentally put them through the wash and they didn't even crease.

FDR

Just fyi, in many places in the country the waste water treatment plants aren't set up to deal with many of these chemicals. Especially if you are located inland any chemicals you put down the drain are going to find themselves back into your water supply if your local plant can't treat it.

I mean a little bleach is okay but I wouldn't go crazy with anything. Not to mention a pulpy bucket of non-degradable paper is likely to clog your pipes if you try to flush it.

Shredder, burn it, or if you can't maybe rip it up toss some in your trash, some in your recycle and some in the yard waste can. Unless you're the specific target no casual thief is going to dig through all your bins to try to find documents to piece together. They'll just move on to your neighbor.

Killgrimage

My husband and I have a similar issue and have figured out a weird way of dealing with it. Get an exacto knife and cut out *exactly* what is the material you don't want found by anyone. For example, our bank sends us our PIN numbers for our new cards in the mail. We can't chuck these papers, but we don't have a shredder/incinerator, and we also want them to stop existing. Husband cuts out the four numbers (basically a little rectangle), and we can safely throw out the rest as there is little personal info on them otherwise. Then we scratch out the number and flush it down the toilet. Even if it's ever found, no one is going to be able to trace it back to us, and it's too little paper to clog. Maybe you can try something similar?

dlinfiniti

where are you from?
you could collect them all in a box and wait for one of these events to come to your area...

VisionOfClarity

Killgrimage wrote: »

My husband and I have a similar issue and have figured out a weird way of dealing with it. Get an exacto knife and cut out *exactly* what is the material you don't want found by anyone. For example, our bank sends us our PIN numbers for our new cards in the mail. We can't chuck these papers, but we don't have a shredder/incinerator, and we also want them to stop existing. Husband cuts out the four numbers (basically a little rectangle), and we can safely throw out the rest as there is little personal info on them otherwise. Then we scratch out the number and flush it down the toilet. Even if it's ever found, no one is going to be able to trace it back to us, and it's too little paper to clog. Maybe you can try something similar?

I like this idea.

Eat it You Nasty Pig.

I usually just burn stuff like that

but then, the house I live in has a fireplace

Magus`

Yeah, was gonna say. Just burn it. It's cheap to do and I promise no one will be able to put together ashes

Seattle Thread

If you're really that paranoid about your trash, just tear your bills/statements in half, putting one half in this week's pickup and the other half in next week's.