Easy way to destroy financial papers?

July 10, 2006 7:17 PM

Three bags of financial papers. No shredder. Looking for an easy safe way to destroy them.

Fire is out. Standing in front of a shreader I don't want to buy for days is out. What's left? Magic melting goop? Please, hints before my wife makes me eat it all...

posted by cccorlew to Work & Money (33 answers total)

Most areas have one or more commercial shredding services who'll take small jobs if you bring the job to them. Try "Shredder Services" or "Paper Shredding Services" in the Yellow Pages or Google it. I can't see them charging much for three bags.
posted by Opposite George at 7:26 PM on July 10, 2006

If you are an established customer at a bank, many will do this as a service for you. Call and ask if they can accomodate you. Just be courteous and make sure you don't go into the bank during the busiest times of the day.
posted by galimatias at 7:26 PM on July 10, 2006

head to a pool supply or industrial cleaning store and pick up a jug or 2 of muriatic acid, aka hydrochloric acid. not sure how much you'll need as "3 bags" is kind of vague. also not sure what kind of container to use - bathtub strikes me as possible, but then you could end up with a very pissed off wife. also, not sure how you might go about neutralizing the acid, which you'd have to do before disposing of it, unless you can find a reasonably strong base to go with it.

on second thought, screw this idea. nevermind.
posted by sergeant sandwich at 7:26 PM on July 10, 2006

you could just get a big bucket o' water and put the paper in and let it sit for a day or two. it'll be all pulp before long.
posted by sergeant sandwich at 7:28 PM on July 10, 2006

Wait, why don't you want to buy a shredder? They start at 30 bucks at Office Max, and you're not going to get it done any cheaper than that. Granted it is slow, but your next option is to hire an on-site shredder (google "Document Destruction Service," optionally append some geographical information as they tend to be regional)... I looked at a couple of websites, and even the ones that mention residential services don't quote a price, so I assume it's expensive.

Best bet is to find a friend who works in a law firm or an accounting firm... they frequently have shredding trucks on site a couple times a week or so, and I doubt they'd notice the additional volume from your personal docs if your friend is willing to take them in.
posted by rkent at 7:30 PM on July 10, 2006

burn them in your backyard.
posted by cellphone at 7:31 PM on July 10, 2006 [1 favorite]

Do you have a bagging lawnmower?
posted by Frank Grimes at 7:37 PM on July 10, 2006 [1 favorite]

If you have any friends who work in a hospital, ask them for help - most hospitals have professional document disposal services, for obvious and federally-mandated reasons.
posted by ikkyu2 at 7:43 PM on July 10, 2006

Seriously, you should consider buying a shredder. You'll have more papers you want destroyed at some point in your life.
posted by danb at 7:46 PM on July 10, 2006

sergeant sandwich writes "unless you can find a reasonably strong base to go with it."

You don't want to use a strong base; that'll give you a vigorous and possibly dangerous reaction. Baking soda should work fine: just keep adding it until it stops fizzing.
posted by mr_roboto at 7:53 PM on July 10, 2006

Yeah, reading your question again, if you want "magic melting goop", acid is the way to go. Wear rubber gloves, clothes you don't care about, and safety glasses. The container shouldn't be a problem: use glass to be absolutely sure, but HCl should be fine with most plastic containers. Test it out with a bit of acid before you get started. Do not use a metal container of any type. Neutralize the end product completely when you're done. I don't think you'll be able to pour the waste down the drain; maybe you could mix it with concrete and throw it in the dumpster as a solid block.


Note: Do not do this. If you decided to do this, please remember that I told you not to.
posted by mr_roboto at 7:59 PM on July 10, 2006

Cheap shredders don't cross-cut, which is something you want if you're doing the job properly.

On-site document destruction means you can see the material destroyed with your own eyes, but they will charge you a minimum call-out fee (in bulk, on-site is actually pretty cheap - they don't display prices because they're negotiable, and because their competitors will immediately undercut them).

"Asking a friend" will work, but has obvious risks.

I'd find a small company that will let you just drop the stuff off and is willing to negotiate away any minimum charge. They sell the shredded paper on to paper recyclers, so they'd rather have your material than not have it.
posted by Leon at 8:05 PM on July 10, 2006

Baking soda should work fine: just keep adding it until it stops fizzing.

this is why i said nevermind. adding baking soda to even a very weak, diluted acid like supermarket vinegar is enough to make a science-fair volcano run and spurt all over. get impatient and add too fast and you've suddenly got foamy concentrated HCl spraying on your skin. i think it's a bad idea.

poster just wants to get rid of the information, not destroy the paper on a molecular level. acid is overkill. leaving it in water overnight and then stirring/smooshing until it's pulpy would suffice, without putting anyone's skin or eyes or the environment at risk. plus it's free.
posted by sergeant sandwich at 8:11 PM on July 10, 2006

I just had a shredding company come to my house. They had a two container minimum with a container being defined as 8 banker boxes full of paper. I cannot define a banker box for you other than to say they are the kind of boxes that bankers and lawyers use to send docs to be stored at the warehouse. Min cost was $120. The rat pack that I am, I had stuff from 15 years ago including banking records and tax forms as well as high school english papers and such. I met the min in kind. Well worth it. Drove his truck up my driveway and shredded it right then and there.

Ask your neighbors if they have something they want shred. If they are human they will have saved stuff they want to get rid of. together, I am sure a group of neighbors can meet the minimum. Share the cost pro rata and boom, no more worries.

Then, get a shredder and do it as needed instead of waiting.
posted by JohnnyGunn at 8:17 PM on July 10, 2006

Put paper in trash barrel, fill with water.
posted by parallax7d at 8:33 PM on July 10, 2006

Should I feel stupid that the last time I needed a medium sized amount of papers destroyed, I simply went home, cooked a few meals, and stuffed my papers in with all the trash, food remains, choppings, liquids, etc? I mean, a few days (at the dump) with all that food remains isn't enough protection?
posted by SeizeTheDay at 8:33 PM on July 10, 2006

HCL is dangerous to people. PLEASE disregard the above, and do not use it. It's just not good sense.
posted by defcom1 at 8:37 PM on July 10, 2006

As the voice of reason here, I just want to stress the following point:

DO NOT TRY ANY OF THE HOME CHEMISTRY METHODS LISTED IN THE ABOVE POSTS.

The acid/base and other chemical suggestions listed are hazardous, potentially explosive, and may result in significant personal injury and property damage.

I know that we sometimes provide some snarky answers to questions, but, seriously folks, this is some bad stuff to even joke about on the off-chance that it is taken seriously. Mixing chemicals without chemistry training is asking for trouble.
posted by galimatias at 8:39 PM on July 10, 2006 [1 favorite]

Any doctor's office will have some kind of document disposal method, not just hospitals.
posted by MadamM at 8:47 PM on July 10, 2006

Get a cross-cut shredder, don't go cheap you'll just end up replacing the cheap one. Make sure it has the ability to shred (chip?) CDs. COSTCO has one for around $120-135. Get half rack of beer while you're there and spend an afternoon saying goodby to your financial records. Ensure you get the necessary oil for the blades at an office supply place.
posted by KneeDeep at 8:58 PM on July 10, 2006

If you go with the mix-with-water method above, use 2 parts water to 1 part milk. It will leave a MUCH gloopier and paper-destroying mess.
posted by Kickstart70 at 9:38 PM on July 10, 2006

I just a $20 shredder (after rebate) at a large office supply chain last week and went through six years of documents. You can't run the cheap ones very long without tripping the automatic shutdown that prevents them from overheating. But you break the job down over a handful of evenings and it's over. Less work and mess than mixing it with water. Plus, it's good to have a shredder around so stuff doesn't pile up again.
I had a cheap one at my office that ran for over a couple of years, even after I got it all snarled up with the end of my tie--which made me really glad I didn't get a more powerful one. Here's a cross-cut shredder for $13.
posted by hydrophonic at 9:44 PM on July 10, 2006

Trash can full of water is much cheaper and easier than shredding in the short run.

In the long run, will the garbage man pick up a trashcan full of goop? (probably).
posted by muddgirl at 10:02 PM on July 10, 2006

Half fill a bin with water, add the paper. Top up the bin. Wait a while (however long you think it needs, this is not a science) then spend 5 minutes vigorously agitating the contents into mush with a broom handle or similar. Unless the documents are laminated or printed on tyvek, you're going to reduce them all to mush quickly.

What you do with it then is up to you. You could poke some holes in the botom of the bin, let the water drain, then stomp the paper mush into a solid brick which could be thrown away.

You could also do this in a bathtub, but the cleanup might be a bit much.

I compost any paper I don't want. Get it nice and soggy, mix it with food scraps, and it doesn't last long.
posted by tomble at 10:08 PM on July 10, 2006

Dig a hole and bury it! A couple of good rainstorms and the bacteria will do the shredding for you. I've done this before and it works fine for paper. It's doubtful anyone is going to dig up what you buried unless you're doing it in a municipal park or something.
posted by chef_boyardee at 10:11 PM on July 10, 2006

Lawn mower + papers = garden mulch.
Garden mulch + water + time = gone.
posted by flabdablet at 11:03 PM on July 10, 2006

Send your bags to Enron, I hear that they're pretty damn good at that kind of thing.

(And it reminds me of the Heinekin advert (embedded wmv))

Seriously, I know it's not what you're after but invest in a shredder and just work your way through them. And once you start shredding you'll notice that you find things that just need to be shredded
posted by Nugget at 3:24 AM on July 11, 2006

What's with the hating on elementary school-level science projects? If you hurt yourself with muriatic acid and baking soda, you kinda have to be trying to. I rather think I'm the voice of reason saying there's absolutely no way you'll create an explosion with acid and baking soda, except of the fun 2-liter bottle with baking soda and vinegar type.

If you're a sissy, however, see if the ink is soluble in methanol(wood alcohol). Shouldn't take much, but it's probably worse for the water system than sodium carbonate.

A plastic bag with diluted liquid detergent and bleach works OK, too.

Shredders are a pain, as the asker knows, so for god's sake stop suggesting things the asker specifically says he doesn't want.
posted by Mr. Gunn at 6:50 AM on July 11, 2006

You could just dig a hole in the backyard and bury them without shredding them.
posted by Sprout the Vulgarian at 7:29 AM on July 11, 2006

I think it's worth taking a step back from some of the wilder bathtub ideas that have been chucked around here.

Muriatic acid/HCl is of questionable use anyway. Paper chemistry is such that I can't see it being much more effective than just straight water mulching (as described by tomble). Most paper is stable at low pH. The oxidizing acids which would be effective are ones you don't want to use at home anyway, and have potentially hazardous side products to boot. What about disposal? Chucking acid or base down the drain is a great way to kill fish. Neutralizing a couple of gallons of commercial grade muriatic acid with bicoarbonate is going to take 10 or 20 pounds of baking soda, and you'll want a neutral buffer to stabilize the final solution. In short, acid bathtub chemistry is a bad idea.

Soaking in methanol/methylated spirits/acetone would destroy most inks very quickly, but then how do you dispose of the residue? Dilution is not the solution here. Waste companies will handle non-chlorinated solvents for about $50-$100/5 gal. pail. They will be very hesitant to pick-up from a residential or light-commercial address, perhaps even calling the police (think drug labs). Do you also have the protective equipment (full mask and gloves, fumehood) and the training to handle them properly? If not, hello liver poisoning.

These methods are too complicated and expensive. By the time you've bought everything to do this right, you've paid for a cross-cut shredder from Office Despot many times over, and it's more and more hazardous work to boot. Mulching or calling a shredding company seem like the best answers to me.
posted by bonehead at 8:05 AM on July 11, 2006

Don't discount the shredder. My wife and I picked up one recently - 12-sheet crosscut with CD shredding slot - and it works great. We burned out various cheaper ones (despite my insistence years ago that buying a heavy-duty one once would be better than buying a string of cheap ones!). As we are moving we had a lot of paper to shred. I mean, three file cabinets and some desk drawers full of paper - old bills, financial records, school things, etc. Yes, it took a while, but there is something cathartic about sending things off to their doom.

On a plus side note, the CD slot works just fine for junk mail as well - most doesn't even need to be opened, just drop the entire envelope into the slot and it's gone.

Shredded paper makes a fine fire starter, a good starting point for compost, it can be dropped by the (paper) bagful into a mixed-paper recycling bin, and last but not least they invented shredders because there really is no simpler method of destroying paper documents.

If you find a better way, do it. Pulping the paper in a large bin of water may work, but you'll find it much easier if the paper is shredded first (my wife took many handmade paper classes as an art student, and they always started with paper shreds instead of full sheets!)
posted by caution live frogs at 9:26 AM on July 11, 2006

I'd just take them to work a couple reams at a time and throw 'em in the locked "CONFIDENTIAL PAPERS TO BE SHREDDED" box that gets picked up every week. If your work doesn't have such a thing, ask a friend.

I've been meaning to do that with some old love letters I've had lying around for a long time.
posted by matildaben at 9:57 AM on July 11, 2006

Just one more layer of clarification for the science project folks: muriatic acid is *REALLY STRONG*.

Splashed drops will burn or blind you.

I used to use this stuff on my folks pool; please don't try this at home. :-)
posted by baylink at 7:30 PM on July 11, 2006