People buy paper shredders for one reason; to make documents with sensitive information unreadable. There are a few techniques that are used by paper shredder manufacturers to accomplish this goal.

1.) How the document is shredded

The cheapest effective means to destroy a document is the strip-cut method. The shredder cuts the document in tiny vertical slices. This method is sufficient for most consumers. The other popular choice is the cross-cut shred, which cuts the document both vertically and horizontally. The cross-cut method also conserves space in the shredder bin while the strip-cut shredder bin becomes full at a quicker rate. This saves time by changing the shredder bin less, making it a wise choice for large shred jobs.

2.) The quantity of documents to shred

Industrial paper shredders are made for a continuous and/or large volume of shredding. These are used primarily by large companies. The average consumer should only require a low cost strip or cross-cut shredder

3.) The sensitivity of the document to shred

The cross-cut shred is used for highly sensitive information since strip-cut shredded documents are easier to reassemble.

As a consumer, the choices should be pretty clean on what shredder to purchase. The only remaining factor would be to make note of each name brand