How Do I Choose the Right Paper Shredder for My Office?

In this series of posts, “How do I choose?”, we will help you take a little of the guesswork out of selecting the best print finish product for your shop or office. It’s sometimes difficult to find the right machine to fit your needs when there are so many models.

“We live in the digital age. The paperless corporation is upon us…” Yeah, I’ve heard that for a few years. There are still stacks of invoices, printed emails, memos, notifications from human resources, and project files ALL over my office. We live in the digital age, that’s true, but we also live in the age of HIPPA regulations, corporate espionage, invasive audits, and big brother. There’s simply a lot on paper that needs to be destroyed before the wrong person sees it.

But, which paper shredder should I get for the office? Does it matter that there are 50 employees on this floor? Or that bank account numbers are often on the forms that I shred? What about those boxes of old accounting files in the basement we plan on having the intern take care of?

Choosing a shredder is all about quantity and level of security. A strip-cut shredder like the Formax FD8600 will accept your feed quickly, but it won’t be as secure and the container will fill up quickly. Cross-cut models like the Formax FD8500 will chop up your documents into a fine dust, but they simply take longer because they’re working harder. Consider that feed speed. When there’s a lot of archives to shred, you don’t want to feed your machine ten sheets at a time. You don’t want your employees spending all day away from their desk.

Then look at the extras. These days we don’t just need to destroy paper. Consider a shredder with the ability to shred compact discs, credit cards and the occasional file that still has a paper clip attached. You want a shredder with the ability to do that without damaging the blades, auto cleaning and reverse functions are important features to include.

Lloyd’s carries a line of Formax Office Shredders that each have great features and come in both strip-cut and cross-cut models. They all have a warranty on the cutting blades and can accept a varying number of pages. Use the compare feature in the list view to find the shredder for your office. The garbage disposal in the break room is just not going to work anymore.

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