If you run your own business, money is probably always on your mind. It’s expensive to run a company, from the cost of supplies and utilities to insurance and employee salaries. Are you also having your paper shredding done off-site? If so, that’s a major expense right there and an unnecessary one. It’s unnecessary because you can shred your own documents in-house and save yourself a lot of money – and your sanity, as well. One of the best ways to do that is by purchasing one or more Fellowes paper shredders for your office. Here’s how these great machines can help you maintain your bottom line, among other things.

When you hire another company to shred your documents, chances are you’ll be shelling out a lot of dough. That’s because the shredding service needs to pay its employees, keep its trucks running, and pay for their other operating costs. All of those factors play a role in determining how much you’ll pay. For example, let’s say you use Sheldon’s Shredding Service over a period of five years. You are looking at paying this company more than $5,000.00 over that time span, which is definitely money that could be put to better use.

One of the better uses of your money would be to invest in a Fellowes machine. If you purchase the commercial-grade C-225i cross-cut shredder, you would spend just over $2,700.00 throughout a 5-year period. That includes the price of the machine itself, routine maintenance and supplies such as oil, and the manpower needed to shred your documents. When you buy a product such as the C-225i instead of employing Sheldon’s Shredding Service, you’re looking at saving almost 50% on your shredding costs which is really a mind-blowing amount.

In addition to how much cash you can save, there’s another important reason to buy a Fellowes machine: your peace of mind. When Sheldon’s Shredding Service does the job for you, countless people will be handling and possibly reading your papers. This can be disastrous if those papers contain any private information such as bank account data, Social Security and credit card numbers, and so on. You’re just setting yourself to be a victim of identity theft or even fraud. And if you dispose of health or credit information about your patients, customers, or employees, you can land in legal trouble as well thanks to federal laws such as the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPPA) and the Fair and Accurate Credit Transactions Act (FACTA). Don’t put yourself in that situation: buy a Fellowes shredder and destroy your documents yourself.

Finally, no matter how big or small your office is, there’s a Fellowes shredder that’s perfect for your needs. The company manufactures personal-sized units that can be used in individual offices as well as enormous commercial-grade machines that can be used by multiple people on a continuous basis. And best of all, each one of these shredders are well-made, reliable, and durable. Fellowes is really a name you can trust.

Saving money is important…so is saving your sanity. By purchasing and using a Fellowes paper shredder, not only will your books be in the black, your company will stay out of trouble, as well.

The latest additions to the features in shredding have paved the way to larger more complex shredding machines that provide organizations with increased security. Most companies nowadays outsource their shredding to shredding service providers. The flavors available in shredding being outsourced are numerous. Shredding service providers give you the option of shredding the paper either on-site using shredding trucks or with off-site shredding facilities.

Collecting the shredded paper in the bins require frequent emptying based on the amount of paper being shred. This can sometimes pass through several people across several geographical locations which can cause a serious security threat to the companies.

Latest Features

The journey from simple shredding machines when it started to today’s complex high performance shredders is a long and innovative path aimed at providing more security to the users. As the saying goes, “Necessity is the Mother of Invention”, as the need grows the manufacturers of shredding machines come up with innovative ideas that offer the users with safety, efficiency and convenience.

Some of the latest additions are listed below:

Jam Proof Shredders: Often we find that a few extra sheets of paper fed into the shredder causes a paper jam. Today’s high end shredders come with sensors that measure paper thickness as it is being fed into the shredder. It does not allow feeding of papers more than the allowed limits. Powerful motors that drive the shredders also take care of folded or crumpled papers in between the pile.

Energy Conservator: When the shredder is not in use it is automatically put in sleep mode, thus saving precious energy and is also eco-friendly.

Safety: Several accidents have happened related to people getting hurt by their hands getting caught in the shredders. The latest shredders come with a safety sensor, which can detect when someone’s hands are too close to the shredder. You can now be assured of the safety of your children and pets near a shredder.

Noise reduction: Previously shredders used to cause such a noise when in use. It thus becomes very inconvenient in shared office spaces. These days’ shredders can operate with such a low noise that you could hardly hear it working.

Reconstruction Impacts:

With a base model of a shredder we get the remnants so close to each other and in thin long strips that it becomes fairly easy to reconstruct the original document. Documents that are shred with the lines horizontal to the rollers tend to come out with the lines very legible.

Dumpster Diving is probably the best way for corporate and professional culprits to find out company secrets and other sensitive information. The latest shredders provide you full and complete security by shredding the papers to sizes smaller than the length of a staple.

Shredder Identification:

Similar to the concept of fingerprints for the humans, each shredder has a fingerprint in terms of blade spacing, thickness of the blades, degree and pattern of the shreds. With these identifications possible it is easy to trace down the source shredder for any shredded document.

Shredders and Safety:

From the origin of shredders we have always faced many accidents with shredders. Our children, our pets or even we may have been injured by a shredder. The newer models come with safety sensors that can prevent from such accidents. Slimmer paper entry slots and safety sensors ensure that there is an indication when hands are placed too close to the paper slots. When it comes to personal and home usage shredders, having the shredders “OFF”, when not in use can reduce the risk factor to a great extent.

Industrial shredders are conveyor fed shredders designed for higher volumes applications. Instead of feeding sheets into a slot, your just toss piles of sheets on to the conveyor and the conveyor feeds the piles of paper into large, hardened steel cutting heads. Industrial shredders can work as stand alone units or with integrated balers. This article is designed to answer some of the most commonly asked questions concerning Industrial shredders.

Is an industrial shredder right for my company?

Industrial shredders allow you to do for yourself what you normally hire a shredding service to do, which is to reduce the cost of shredding by consolidating the shredding of numerous employees, using a high capacity shredder. This allows the bulk of shredding to be done by one, lower cost employee (lower as compared to your expensive office workers, administrators and even managers) and therefore reduce the overall cost of shredding. You can begin to cost justify an industrial shredder at about 500 pounds of shredding per week. The more shredding your company does, the more cost effective an industrial shredder becomes.

How much can an industrial shredder shred per hour?

Industrial shredders can shred from 750 to about 2,250 pounds of paper per hour, depending on the cut type. Seven hundred fifty pounds of paper would be about 15 large file boxes of paper, file folders, mail and other items commonly shredded. Each file box will typically weigh about 50 pound when full, so 2,250 pounds would be about 45 large file boxes.

How can I estimate how much shredding my company does?

One method is by number of employees. The average office worker in the US shreds about 50 sheets of paper per day. This includes self generated documents, incoming mail and items purged from filing cabinets. This translates into about 2.5 pounds of shredding per employee, per week. So a typical company with 250 office workers on site will probably shred about 625 pounds per week. Another method is to count the number of shred boxes and bins in use and multiply as appropriate by the capacity of each type of box or bin. The most common shred box sizes are the 36″ and 27″ boxes which hold 65 and 45 pounds of paper respectively. The most popular bin sizes are the 92 and 64 gallon bins which hold 350 and 250 pounds respectively.

Is it less expensive to use an industrial shredder, or to hire a shredding service?

Your price from a shredding service will depend on a few factors:

1. Your shredding volume, the higher the volume, the lower the unit cost.
2. The security level of the shredding that you desire. The higher the security level, the longer it takes to shred.
3. The logistics of your facility (this determines how long it will take the driver to walk around and empty all the bins.)
4. How often do you want your shred bins emptied? More visits mean a higher price.
5. Does your shred service provide the shred boxes and shred bins free of charge?
6. Do you want on-site or plant based shredding?

Shredding services will typically price by the bin (sometimes called by the tip) or they will charge by the minute/hour. Some services also charge for pick-up (also called visit charges??). There may also be unanticipated costs such as fuel surcharges when fuel prices go up. Prices are also affected by the after market price the shredding service can get for the paper they sell to recycling companies. You’ll probably find that the going price of shredding services will equate to about twenty to twenty-five cents per pound although few if any shredding service will actually quote a “per pound” price. High volumes may equate to as low as ten cents per pound and lower volumes can equate to as much as forty cents per pound.Your cost to shred in-house with an industrial shredder will also depend on three factors:

1. The hourly labor rate of the person you designate to do the shredding.
2. The purchase price or monthly lease, maintenance cost, capacity, and projected life span of your shredder
3. Overhead costs such as collection (emptying the bins), shredder bags, shredder oil and maintenance.

Fortunately, all of these costs are easily anticipated and can be controlled with an effective security plan. The operative point is that by installing your own industrial shredder, buying your own bins and developing your own plan, you are essentially employing the same logic and economy of scale that the shredding service uses and you keep the savings.

What do I need, to put my own in-house shredding plan together?

There are a few things you will need to arrange:

1. Does your facility have the space for an in-house industrial shredder? You will need:
   • Space for the shredder (shredder footprint plus about 3-4 feet all around)
   • Space to stage about one weeks worth of material to shred, you can fit 2,000 lbs on one pallet
   • Space for the bagged (or baled) shredded material, bagged material will need 2x the space of the unshredded material and baled material will be about a 1:1 ratio.
2. Does your facility have, or can you install adequate power at the location where shredding will take place. You will need 220V, 3-phase, 30 or 50 amp, 60 cycle power.
   • You will need to purchase shred boxes and/or bins and wheeled carts to transport the material from the boxes and bins to the shredder. Shred boxes and bins are inexpensive and long lasting. There are several quality manufacturers.

What are some of the elements that my plan should contain?

1. The first thing you need to do is take a look at your company’s organizational structure and divide the various departments into high, medium and low security zones:
   • High Security Zones are areas of the company where very sensitive documents are commonly produced. Most companies will consider areas such as payroll, human resources, the executive suite and research