Place that will shred documents in front of person?

[Velvis]

I've gotten a lot of help from here over the years so I while not directly tech related I figured I'd ask the knowledgeable gang here.

A customer of mine wanted to know if there is a place to bring documents that could be shredded while they are there.
She told me staples doesn't do it and her home shredder isn't very good.

I don't think it's a lot of material but she would like to bring it somewhere she can see them destroy it.

 

[britechguy]

This is going to vary, widely, based on where the individual is located.

Many banks and credit unions have "document shredding days" where the truck that's on site has a massive shredder and they toss things in while you're there.

If she really doesn't trust document shredding services, her best bet would be to invest in a better home shredder. There are plenty out there for under $100 that can easily shred 10 to 15 pages at a pop.

 

[timeshifter]

Yeah, I bought a really nice shredder at Costco recently for $109. Fire it up and watch TV or something for a while and feed it.

And as @britechguy says there are often free shredding events, you just have to catch one. In my area I've seen them on weekends, like a Saturday afternoon. You carry your box of documents and watch them throw them in the shredder.

 

[GTP]

Many factories have incinerators. She could ask if she could throw them in while she watched?

 

[Markverhyden]

Many municipalities have public services like that, sometimes on an infrequent basis. Shredding is one that I see on occasion. I just searched for Wake County public shredding event 2023 and got the below. Nice if it's a one time thing. But for most people it's not so, as @britechguy and @timeshifter shifter indicated you can get a decent shredder for not a whole lot of clams.

 

[Markverhyden]

Many factories have incinerators. She could ask if she could throw them in while she watched?

Many homes have them as well. AKA barbecue grills. And they can burn a whole lot more than just paper........

 

[GTP]

There are many ways to destroy documents.
On occasion I've soaked them in a bucket to which I added some bleach. Leave it for a few hours and it completely strips the ink from the documents. Then I used a broom handle to pulp the paper so it could be flushed down the toilet.

 

[britechguy]

Many factories have incinerators. She could ask if she could throw them in while she watched?

Or she could stop worrying unnecessarily and use the shred services, often free, offered by places like Staples. They shred untold millions of pages of paper per year. I have yet to hear a single story of any page "escaping to the wild" nor of those actually providing the service absconding with material later used for nefarious purposes.

There's reasonable precaution and there's paranoia.

 

[frase]

She sounds annoying...

 

[NviGate Systems]

Over here in Canada, we have a company called Iron Mountain. You can have a truck dispatched to your place for a fee. Shredded right in front of you.

I realize some customers are "that way" but it's always good to have options like this available. Some customers may be nuts but spend good money when well taken care of.

We also don't know if they have suffered a breach before. I've had to deal with situations like this before in a sense, so customers that have had issues generally don't have much trust, and rightfully so. So they are not always "crazy" or so...