Items You Should Not Put in a Shredder

After the paper has been loaded, push the start button, and watch as the paper shreds fall into the trash. It’s not hard to shred documents.

Document shredding has become standard practice due to the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), which places a legal requirement on companies and other organizations to preserve sensitive data.

All things can be shredded. Well, not exactly. A shredding machine can only handle certain types of paper. Knowing what not to shred is extremely important. Safety requires that a shredder be appropriately used and regularly maintained to extend its life.

Metal Credit Cards

Paper shredders have trouble with credit cards with a magnetic strip or microchip; however, some types can shred plastic cards. These items threaten your paper shredder and can leave behind shreds that can be used to reconstruct confidential information.

Scramble the information by passing a strong magnet over the strip, and then destroy the chip with a hammer or scissors. If you want to destroy a credit card properly, you can’t just throw it into any old shredder and hope for the best.

Electronics

No type of Shredder is safe for electronic waste. If these materials are introduced into sealed containers, several problems could arise. Many electronic devices, for instance, are powered by lithium batteries, which are combustible if mishandled. The number of accidents started by these abandoned gadgets has increased in dumps.

Laptops and smartphones, which are used to hold sensitive company data, have been increasingly powered by lithium batteries. Attempts to improve data security by disposing of electronic devices in heavy-duty shredders frequently result in the accidental destruction of valuable data. Unfortunately, these batteries can overheat, catch fire, or explode if they are mishandled or stored among flammable paper materials.

Clothes

Some people may have scraps of fabric lying around the house that they would like to repurpose into fiberfill because fiberfill is a synthetic substance used for bedding. Cloth fibers are significantly more substantial than paper fibers; consequently, they are more likely to become entangled in the machinery and may cause damage to it. You might want to consider taking the pieces of fabric to a local sewing store or recycling facility, but you could also use scissors to chop them up instead.

Hard Solids

The container’s integrity can be compromised by various factors, not just electronic devices. When improperly tossed into a shredder container, needles, glassware, canisters, cardboard tubes, printer cartridges and ink, hanging folders, nuts and bolts, office tools like hole punchers and staple removers, and even food can all be harmful or damaging.

Conclusion

Each shredder machine currently available on the market will provide a list of the items it can destroy. For safety reasons, you should not attempt to shred a particular item if the Shredder does not explicitly state that it can handle the material in question.

If you try to force something through a shredder that is not equipped to chop it into pieces, you will most likely end up breaking the machine. It is better to rely on New Jersey Shredder for the best service!