Paper Shredder - Applications

Applications

• Animal Bedding – Animal bedding is one of the most economical and ecological methods of recycling. Waste paper, be it news print or off cuts, can be shredded and bagged to produce a warm and comfortable bed for animals. This then decomposes very quickly on a muck heap.
• Security Shredding – Document destruction, to prevent identity theft was one of the earliest uses of shredders. Shredding into strips, or dicing documents, makes it nearly impossible for the documents to be read after shredding.
• Void Fill and Packaging – Shredded material can be used both as an aesthetic and functional product. Shredded Cellophane can be used to package high street good, and shredded cardboard can be used as a void fill for the transportation of goods.
• Cardboard Briquettes – Briquettes are quickly becoming a viable alternative to coal and other non renewable fuels.
• Children's Playgrounds – Once tires have been shredded and granulated, they are often combined with a strong resin to create soft rubber playground.
• Waste Reduction – Shredding waste material generally reduces waste volume by up to 75%, which, for the remaining material that reaches landfill, is much less robust and takes up less room in fill.
• Insulation – In Japan, finely shredded newsprint is often mixed with flame-retardant chemicals and glue to create a spray-able insulation material for the construction of buildings to be applied on wall interiors and on the underside of roofing.

Shredding at high levels continues in government agencies too. According to the report of the Paul Volcker Committee, between April and December 2004, Kofi Annan’s then Chef de Cabinet Iqbal Riza authorized thousands of UN documents shredded including the entire chronological files of the Oil-for-Food Programme between the years 1997-1999.

The Union Bank of Switzerland used paper shredders to destroy evidence that their company owned property stolen from Jews during the Holocaust by the Nazi government. The shredding was uncovered to the public by the work of Christoph Meili, a security guard working at the bank who happened to wander by a room where the shredding was taking place. Also in the shredding room were books from the German Reichsbank. They listed stock accounts for companies involved in the holocaust, including BASF, Degussa, and Degesch. They also listed real-estate records for Berlin property that had been forcibly taken by the Nazis, placed in Swiss accounts, and then claimed to be owned by UBS. Destruction of such documents was a violation of Swiss laws.