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I bought an admittedly fairly cheap shredder a little while ago to shred newspaper for bird bedding, annoyingly I have to faff about cutting the pages into less than half to get them to go through the shredder and it jams with irritating regularity!! Does anyone have a shredder that is capable of shredding a few sheets of newspaper? Would love to know what brand it is!!
Thank You

I assume you are talking about an office paper shredder rather than a garden shredder.
I got one from Lidls a while back (the office sort) and it was cheap and sort of worked for a while and then started pulling the paper through at an angle and jamming up.
Then I got another one from the same place, only this was a bigger one without the container underneath and it cost quite a bit more but that works fine. It shreds about 10 A4 sheets at a time or two broadsheet newspaper pages folded in four.
If you're thinking of getting another one, I would look for those which profess to shredding CDs & DVDs. If they can shred those then a few sheets of newspaper would be child's play.
Those that shred credit cards as well have a separate smaller slot I believe.

At the risk of sounding uninformed (who me? ) - why would anyone want to shred a cd or dvd. You can use them for lots of things whole and even for disposal they take up very little room.

I'm confused (increasingly, it seems, these days)

Oh and I forgot to add this for you indy

http://www.tomballhatchet.com/hamstershredder.html

Green Aura wrote:why would anyone want to shred a cd or dvd

Because they could contain sensitive or confidential information as computer text files and the only way to make sure that it cannot be accessed is to destroy the disk, deleting isn't enough.
Remember all those disks the MOD, Social Security and Banks have lost in the past ?

They could also contain songs by Daniel O'Donnell

I think they were still in use Tony. But you're right of course, that's why they'd need shredding. Maybe they shouldn't be using those storage media.

Sorry, I'm being grumpy - it's all so ridiculous

Thank you very much for all the info, will hunt one down, GA am especially going to hunt one of those down

indy wrote:I bought an admittedly fairly cheap shredder a little while ago to shred newspaper for bird bedding, annoyingly I have to faff about cutting the pages into less than half to get them to go through the shredder and it jams with irritating regularity!! Does anyone have a shredder that is capable of shredding a few sheets of newspaper? Would love to know what brand it is!!
Thank You

I bought one a few years ago. There were three to choose from and I bought the middle sized one. It was a real mistake. I cannot put a sheath of papers through, and am constantly having jams if the quantity is not carefully considered.

If I purchase another it will be the largest available, consistent with the storage space. When using one wants to simply shove the paper in without having to separate the sheets. Caveat emptor!

I use the one at work, which is a heavy duty cross-cut machine. In return, I reduce their waste bills by taking the shreddings to line the chicken nesting boxes. A neat little system, given someone else's investment in a powerful shredder.

My old church bought a heavy duty one and advertised it for use by the congregation and community. I don't think it got that much use outside the church office but that was a good idea - they can be useful machines but most individuals don't produce nearly enough waste to make a personal one worthwhile.

Out of interest, is it possible to get hand cranked rather than electric ones?

Wulf

Yes, you can often pick them up in pound shops. But they're tiny and made of plastic - good enough to shred your bank statement. I've never seen anything bigger.

I got a hand cranked one from Betterware but it aggravated my tennis elbow so I save up all my confidential paper and put it on the fire instead.

Then I ask other people, with decent crosscut shredders, for their shredded paper for the chickens.

Zoe