Heavy Duty Shredders - No Need To Fear, The Most Powerful Shredders Are Here

In the olden days before electronic heavy duty shredders, you have to put scissors to paper just to shred the information contained therein to bits and pieces. It was a laborious task with no assurance that the paper will not be pieced back together by a few investigators - or as the case may be, industrial spies - and then become a weapon against the company.

Well, of course, there was the option of just burning the paper but that would have been too risky, fire-wise.  Or you could have just thrown the whole thing into the trash once your hands had given up on the paper-and-scissors activity.

Then again, you will think hard before doing throwing important if unused documents into the trash for many reasons.  For one thing, what may be unimportant in your estimation can be used against you by other individuals.  For another thing, dumpster diving is legal, which means that once you have thrown paper into the trash, it is fair game.  These are the reasons why heavy duty shredders have been invented - to ensure safety and security where any and all company information is concerned.

But not all shredders are made equal to your needs.  You have to ask yourself a few questions before buying a heavy duty shredder especially when one considers that it is a sizable investment in terms of space, money and manpower.

First and foremost, you have to ask about the level of sensitivity that the documents for shredding possess, in a manner of speaking.  You can choose from many levels of security - Level 1 to 6 with the addition of the DOD and NSA/CSS standards - in shredders depending on the size of the strips.

Level 1 and Level 2 shredders offer the lowest levels of security at relatively large 12mm and 6 mm strips, respectively.  At Levels 3 and 4, the information contained in the storage media is confidential or commercially sensitive.  All government offices are required to use shredders with Levels 5 and 6 for top secret or classified documents.

The next consideration is the amount of use required of the shredder.  Heavy duty shredders are best for relatively large offices that require simultaneous shredding of up to 60 sheets.  Otherwise, go for general office shredders that can handle a maximum of just 30 sheets at a time.  This is an important consideration as you do not want to shred paper one at a time.

And then there is the matter of the types of materials that will be shredded.  Although all shredders can handle paper clips and staples attached to the paper, not every shredder can handle ring binders, thick cardboard and storage media like CDs and tapes.  Thus, it is very important to know that the heavy duty shredder can actually handle the materials that you plan to feed it with.

When all of these considerations have been satisfied, it is time to look into price comparisons between the models of heavy duty shredders available from a certain site or store.  Budget is almost always the last factor to be considered because you simply cannot and must not put a price to your company's safety and security of information.