Recycling Information - Dealing With Shredded Paper
Many of us now have paper shredders in our homes, offices and classrooms. They are quick, quiet and inexpensive devices which help us destroy personal and confidential information with the minimum of fuss. However there is some issue which is often overlooked and that is the recycling element of shredded paper.
You may have thought, as I did, that recycling shredded papers would be no different from any other paper but unfortunately it is not that straight forward. Many recycling organisations won't accept shredded paper for various reasons.
One of the major one is for safety reasons, processing shredded paper is actually quite difficult. Paper that is shredded is awkward to handle and sort, falls off conveyor belts, gets tangled in machinery and also represents a tangible fire risk. There is also a difficulty with sorting, many processing units are unable to sort or detect paper when its been reduced in size by shredding.
When you combine this with the fact that shredded paper actually reduces the fibre length of the paper. This will actually, reduce the quality and strength of any paper produced from this recycling. You can see why many companies would rather not deal with huge amounts of shredded paper.
So what's the solution?
Well of course you should always check with your local recycling scheme, there are some companies who are set up to deal with shredded paper. If not try and reduce the amount of paper that you do shred, of course all confidential and personal papers should be destroyed but often we get into a habit of shredding everything.
The other obvious use of shredded papers is to help in composting, although it cannot obviously be recycled then - it can be used or disposed of much more easily. You should never risk not destroying confidential information but it's always worth thinking of the best environmental option when possible.
