Getting rid of documents

We bought a bin incinerator from a local shop and burned all our confidential papers.

My mother-in-law is about to use a document destroying service.
They bring/post bags to your home and charge in multiples of 25kg (I think 25kg).

It's not very expensive.

I’m pretty sure there are companies that will do bulk shredding for you. A friend used one such when clearing her deceased dh’s vast mass of paperwork - inc. electricity bills dating back to the 70s!! - for a house he’d sold decades previously.
IIRC they charged by weight.

Whether you’d trust them with anything confidential I don’t know, but maybe you could tackle such things yourself and let them take the rest?

We use a confidential waste company.
We take it and they destroy it.

confidential waste company yes! That's what I meant!

I have used a mobile shredding company. They turn up with a big van containing an industrial sized shredder which eats the lot, including staples, in seconds. You can watch it being done and they give you a certificate confirming that the papers have been destroyed. Burning a large quantity of papers is very difficult and time consuming.

I have just disposed of mountains of bank statements that my husband has saved since 2016!!!! Our shredder would have blown up. I read somewhere that if you soak the documents in a large washing up bowl overnight they turn to paper maiche, you squeeze them into cricket size balls, they then dry into lightweight lumps. I can confirm that it works, I toss them into the recycling bin. You would be surprised as to how much paper very quickly goes slimy and unreadable, it's quite therapeutic.

I usually make mine into papier mache , tear them a little and roll into balls for recycling

I've had to shred and burn papers from my parents , which date back some 20 odd years .
They filled three huge storage boxes .
I used my garden incinerator .
It was tedious , but had to be done .

We always burn them.

I shred documents and then put the shredded paper on the ocmpost heap.

Thankfully I insist on only keeping 6 years of doccuments plus the current year and I go through the files every autumn

However for the last 5 years when alsorts of banl statements etc come through online. I am saving everything online.

When we moved three years ago we had a filing cabinet and nine largish boxes of paperwork. In the process of decluttering we whistled it down to one large box and some files. We really didn’t need mortgage statements from 1974, though it was shocking to see that the interest rate was going up each month and consequently our payments were increasing monthly too.

We disposed of the waste paper with a recycling company, I think they charged about £9 a box or sack. It was also a day out as the recycling centre was really interesting to visit!

whittled

SporeRB

We bought a bin incinerator from a local shop and burned all our confidential papers.

We do the same. You can buy various sizes of the incinerator bins.

Am I the only poster who wouldnt trust a confidential waste company?

I do as Buffyfly9 suggests. I just tear the documents into pieces and soak them in a bowl of water. A few hours later I screw them into balls and get rid of them in the bin.

It’s fine until you reach the stage of piles of paper each a couple of feet high! My husband is a shocking hoarder of paperwork! Totally impractical to do anything but get the mobile shredder in.

I’m afraid many companies have no option but to trust the confidential waste disposers fancythat, because of the vast amount of confidential paperwork produced.

The place we used to dispose of papers allowed you to see your documents being shredded, if you wished. We didn’t have any state secrets so didn’t bother.

Burning paper pollutes the environment, I don’t think it’s a good idea.

Thanks all. I found a document-shredding company today and they would charge me about £500 for my stuff! I have far too much to soak in water - and indeed have tried that before and it simply didn't work. I do put some in the compost heap but I've got far too much for that as well.

There are arguments to say that the burning of paper is carbon-neutral if taken alongside the effects of felling trees, though I am a bit sceptical of that.

However, I have to get rid of it all, so I am seriously considering buying an incinerator bin and passing the job to DH.

£500? I have never paid anything like that! Google mobile shredding companies and get some quotes. I’m assuming you haven’t got an entire library to shred!

We have an incinerator bin. DH and I were both self employed and you have to keep stuff for 7 years . I have a big clear out of our home office every few years .

As some have suggested I soak mine to a pulp , they compost very nicely among the veg peelings and plant cuttings . Could take you a while but maybe a bowl at a time ?

buffyfly9

I have just disposed of mountains of bank statements that my husband has saved since 2016!!!! Our shredder would have blown up. I read somewhere that if you soak the documents in a large washing up bowl overnight they turn to paper maiche, you squeeze them into cricket size balls, they then dry into lightweight lumps. I can confirm that it works, I toss them into the recycling bin. You would be surprised as to how much paper very quickly goes slimy and unreadable, it's quite therapeutic.

Great idea, I'm going to start doing this. Thank you!

In your place, I would sort the papers into two groups:

confidential
others

Anything confidential in the legal sense, in that it was part of your work and you signed a confidentiality clause must be destroyed, as you know. If this pile is too large for your shredder to cope with, or if it simply would take too long, contact your employer (former or present) and ask their advice about destroying these documents.

Unfortunately, not all the firms that claim they destroy confidential papers properly actually do so - confidential papers have been known to crop up in land-fill.

You may want to include things like former drafts of your will in the confidential pile.

The rest, including bank statements and tax returns that are older than the Inland Revenue can demand to see, or that you will need if they should demand an audit going back some years, you can safely put in the recycling bin for paper.

However, if as I suspect, you may be intending to move to a smaller property, do make sure you do not destroy now any receipts for work done on the property, or for items you may decide to sell, rather than hang on to.

If you have more than can go in the recycling bin in one or two goes, which is likely, ring the recycling plant and find out whether you can hand the rest in in plastic sacks, in paper sacks or baled, and if they will collect it, or if you have to take it to the plant

And do remember to remove staples and paper clips from anything you intend to shred, as no shredder can cope with metal.