How to Shred Paper

It is important when you are running a business to properly shred documents that may contain important financial information or company secrets before disposing of those documents. But, it is not only businesses that need to properly shred certain documents; households need to know how to do this, too. Before you throw out any of those credit card offers, bills or bank statements, you need to make sure that they are shredded to avoid identity theft, a growing problem in today's society.

Things You'll Need

• Shredder (optional)
• Garbage

Instructions

1. Purchase a shredder that is large enough to handle the tasks that you need it to take care of. If you are purchasing a shredder for a small business then you may opt for a small shredder that attaches to the top of an office-sized waste basket; if you are looking to simply shred home documents then you may opt to skip the shredder all together and simply use your hands to get the job done.

2. Place the shredder over a wastebasket and either turn the shredder on or set it to automatically turn on when a paper is placed at its opening. If you have a lot of papers to shred at once then I would set the shredder to "on." If you simply want to be able to shred the papers as needed as you go through your day then turn the shredder to an auto setting.

3. Remove any staples or paper clips from the document before you shred it; metal objects can cause your shredder to jam or to break.

4. Place the document that you wish to shred at the opening of the shredder, which will look like a large slit in the top. The shredder should pull the paper through, shredding it as it goes.

5. Rip your document into thin strips and then rip those thin strips into tiny squares if you are simply shredding some home documents by hand. Pay special attention to any areas of the document that may contain your name, address, or social security number. You may want to tear these areas into even smaller pieces, making them even harder to put back together.

Tips & Warnings

• For extra security you may want to distribute the shredded documents across at least two garbage bags so that no whole document can be found by a stranger in one bag, especially if you are shredding documents by hand.