Quick, mess-free way to destroy 100+ pounds of sensitive documents/paperwork if you don't own a shredder or fireplace?

For God's sake, Ivanka, this is what your daddy pays all those people for.

R1 ha, good one.

A can of kerosene and a match.

Send it to Fox News. Nobody will ever know the truth.

Buy a shredder, you cheap whore.

There are commercial shredding services, The UPS Stores offer document shredding, not on site

[quote] When you visit, we'll weigh your documents and then you'll place them into the secured, locked shredding bin. It's that easy.

Where I live a company has shredding events for charity, you bring your documents and they go in a large shredder while you make a donation.

Google document shredding services

I take mine to work and drop it in a blue recycle bin we use for documents containing PHI.

FedEx has a shredding service for $1.49/lb.

Time Shred services Manhattan, Brooklyn, Bronx, Staten Island, Queens, Long Island, Westchester, and New Jersey, they come right to your home or office and shred on site for more security.

OP, I had to do this a few years ago and used a grocery store shredder, I think it was a Safeway. You can probably google for locations in your area. They didn't charge much, you just bring in a box at a time and shred it yourself.

R3 where would I do that? I don't own a fireplace or a firepit.

R8 $1.49/lb for 100+ (possibly 150+) lbs. is a little steep for me, especially considering someone offered to do it for free. Yes, I am a cheap whore. Guilty as charged, R5.

R9 I'm in the Midwest.

Haha r9 I misread your link as Presidential shredding not residential!

OP, how did you accumulate 150 lbs of paper?

Buy a paper shredder... not too expensive. You can get one at Staples.

OP, go with your gut. Don't trust the guy next door. Use a commercial bonded shredding service.

R13 it's a combination of my and my business-owning bf's trash that built up over several years because we're both procrastinating slobs.

A lot of towns have quarterly recycling “events” at which they will, among other things, shred documents for free, while you watch. You might want to give them a call.

**************WARNING**************

For anyone owning/operating a shredder - always unplug it from the outlet when not in use. Dogs and cats have gotten their tongues shredded when licking the feeder. Don't let this happen to YOUR pet!

it u buy a shredder than what Will you do with that mountain of shredded paper?

What’s a hypothetical ‘example’ of sensitive documents?

Get a fucking grill and some lighter fluid and get to burnin! GRILL/MATCH/FLUID. Now GO!

Put it in large plastic garbage bags and stick it in your garage. Then a few years later you'll move and while cleaning out your garage, realize you care about the documents but not enough to spend the time and money having them professionally destroyed, and you'll toss them out with the regular trash. The documents are probably worthless anyway.

R18 um... holy shit. Thanks for the warning, but I really didn't need to see that pic of the poor doggie's julienned tongue

R19 good question. I like feeding backyard birds, so maybe some of it left outside as nesting material?

You can buy a cheap shredder for less than $35 on amazon or Home Depot.

If you somehow can't afford that, and yet you are producing dangerous documents, I have ZERO sympathy for you.

R24 I would for sure buy one if they last a long time and don't crap out after the first 100 or so sheets

I spent about $200 on a large capacity shredder from Frontgate a decade ago, and still have it and use it. It works really well and has held up just fine. I'd go with price and ratings on Amazon. That being said, it is still hard to shred some things and takes awhile if you let the documents pile up, so I wouldn't recommend it for large batches, unless you can bribe your houseboy to do it.

Throw everything in the nearest river.

At a 100+ pounds, the only option I'd consider at that weight would be burning. If you're in a residential neighborhood with burning restrictions, you may have to do it bit by bit until it's gone over the course of several days. The other idea I thought about it maybe filling up your bathtub and letting the papers soak in there. Then take the wet papers and basically wring and crumple them and throw them away. They wouldn't be destroyed technically but they'd definitely be harder to extract sensitive info from.

just rip them up yourself.

OP = Nichol Kessinger

What do we call those metal drums that hobos and construction stick pieces of wood and burn during cold nights. That. Roast some dogs and marshmallows.

^ We call them "metal drums"

Take a bath, then put them in your tub and let them soak for a few hours. Drain the tub filled with ink. Spend a few minutes pulling them apart, they will be unreadable. Dump the mush in a garbage sack.

How come your neighbour knows you need a shredder?

Abracadabra!

If you're too cheap to spend $50 on a shredder that you'll be able to use in the future, I'm sure it's safe just to hand it to your neighbor or even just toss it in the regular recycle trash.

Why don't you buy a shredder then return it after you're done?

Why don't you buy a pig and feed the documents to it? You can probably pick up a pig for cheap on Amazon.

Thanks for the suggestions everyone, even the useless bitchy remarks like the one at R35. I considered taking my neighbor up on his offer and also asking if I could watch the whole process, but I knew I'd feel like an asshole asking that.

So instead what I think I'll do is just keep a lookout for free shredding events like the ones mentioned by R6 and R17. For the time being, we'll just tackle it little by little--some burnt in the bbq grill out back, some soaked into pulp in the spare garbage bins we have lying around. It probably won't be "mess-free" but oh well.

You're welcome mush mush

Do cheap shredders still burn out while shredding ten sheets of paper at a time?

Get a shovel and bury it somewhere. After one good rain, even if someone digs it up, they won't be able to read it.

Call your local equipment rental place. They rent commercial-duty shredders that can take large quantities of paper at a time. Reasonable prices, too, and they'll fit in the back of your car. I rented one for a volunteer group, we made a party out it. Put it on the patio, we took turns feeding documents into it while the rest sat around the fire, eating and drinking. People brought their own documents to shred, too. And then we bagged the shreds in recyclable paper lawn bags and put them out for my recycling pickup.

So, you're going to burn some of it in your grill? That would be best, but don't do it inside the house like me. Oh, heavens to Betsy! You dirty birdie!

If you don't want to get a pig you could drizzle them with maple syrup and let some toddlers gnaw on them. Check the local parks for willing children.

If I had extra money I would gladly buy a shredder. Tearing it up by hand is painful.

I bought a shredder and it was the biggest pain in the ass ever. I put all the paper into a cardboard box and labeled it paper recycling, per my recycling companies procedures, but the next time I go through a purge of important papers, I am probably just going to buy a big metal tub, put the paper in there with some lighter fluid, and get a match. Seriously.

OP = Matthew Whitaker

[quote]I bought a shredder and it was the biggest pain in the ass ever. I put all the paper into a cardboard box and labeled it paper recycling, per my recycling companies procedures, but the next time I go through a purge of important papers, I am probably just going to buy a big metal tub, put the paper in there with some lighter fluid, and get a match. Seriously.

Perhaps, you can do it as a gender announcement and achieve similar spectacular results?

You must stick the papers with quills, OP! It is the only way!

We in Iran encourage shredding of documents.

R50 oh damn lol

A wonderful idea for the future OP, is to buy a chiminea for your patio. they twist the ashes around in circles and burn things like this extremely well.

With 150 lbs of paper, a cheap shredder won't cut it. It will overheat and you have to wait for the machine to cool down before restarting. That would take days to accomplish.

Eat them.

You know you want to.

Spend $50 on a shredder, you cheap whore!

Purchase termites.

Method 1 Pulping Sensitive Documents

Place the documents in a large trashcan. ...

Pour in ½ Gallon (2L) of bleach. ...

Add 5 Gallons (19L) of water. ...

Push the documents down into the bleach water. ...

Let the documents sit for 24 hours. ...

Blend the documents with a paint turbine mixer. ...

Lay out in sunlight to dry. ...

Dispose of the pulp.

Rent a goat, OP!

Adopt 100 dogs. If they look for the evidence, tell them your dogs ate them.

Could I interest anyone in some homemade papier-mâché piñatas?

No one has said grease fire yet?