Disposing of a big ...
 

Disposing of a big stack of paper

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I've got a big stack of A4 paper that, whilst not exactly sensitive, I don't want to put in the recycling because it's got personal info on it.  It's probably 1000 sheets. I don't want to shred it myself because that takes hours and hours and they will only take a limited amount of shredded paper in council recycling.  You can pay for it to be disposed of but that's £50-60 at least, maybe more.  So I thought about burning it, but whilst I have a garden, a patio and a chimenea, it's well overlooked by neighbours and it is likely to produce a load of smuts and burned bits of paper all over the place - and stink a bit.

Give me your creative ideas - perhaps a better way to burn it more cleanly?  My wife suggested hiring a convertible and driving around the countryside with the papers on the back seat.

 
Posted : 17/04/2025 2:38 pm
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Farenheight 451

 
Posted : 17/04/2025 2:41 pm
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I'd soak them - as a stack (or several stacks) in a bowl of water, possibly with a bit of wallpaper paste - overnight, leave to dry out, then they should have stuck together sufficiently and/or smudged the ink, so you can safely dispose of them in your wheelie bin.

 
Posted : 17/04/2025 2:43 pm
olddog reacted
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Take up origami.

Honestly, I'd bit the bullet and just shred it.  Maybe do it in batches rather sitting there until you get RSI.

 
Posted : 17/04/2025 2:44 pm
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If it's not that sensitive I'd just chuck it in recycling bin on collection day.

Waste operatives haven't got time to go trawling through wheelie bins.

 
Posted : 17/04/2025 2:48 pm
IHN reacted
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bedding for the STW server hamsters?

 
Posted : 17/04/2025 2:53 pm
anorak reacted
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Take up origami.

1000 sheets you say, gifting 1000 origami cranes at weddings is a thing - well according to Mrs dB & wiki it is.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/One_thousand_origami_cranes

 
Posted : 17/04/2025 3:02 pm
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Fire, the answer is always fire.

 
Posted : 17/04/2025 3:22 pm
 poly
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Ever visit an office with confidential waste bins?  I have a plastic crate I keep here then once a year take to the office when I have some reason to drive in.  Most of it probably is work related but I'm not going to sort through and decide which is sensitive and which is not.

 
Posted : 17/04/2025 3:55 pm
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If you haven't got a log burner give it to someone who has. Good for starting the fire

 
Posted : 17/04/2025 3:58 pm
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save it for lighting the BBQ when the sunshine comes back

 
Posted : 17/04/2025 4:04 pm
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Don’t try burning it in your garden. We did that and the mess was awful and there was loads of semi-burnt bits of paper floating over nearby houses. 

 
Posted : 17/04/2025 4:20 pm
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I'd soak them - as a stack (or several stacks) in a bowl of water, possibly with a bit of wallpaper paste - overnight, leave to dry out, then they should have stuck together sufficiently and/or smudged the ink, so you can safely dispose of them in your wheelie bin.

Or start a papier mache sculpture of your favourite 19th century explorer? (If 19thC explorers aren't your thing then choose another subject...)

 
Posted : 17/04/2025 4:29 pm
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Shred and add to a compost pile in batches...or as mentioned, if you work in an office, take a load on and feed into the confidential waste bin there.

 
Posted : 17/04/2025 5:17 pm
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Get one of those garden burners thats like a galvanised dustbin with holes in it and a lid with a chimney. Then drill lots and lots of more holes in it. Start a fire with some properly dry wood and throw the paper on a handful at a time. If the woods dry enough and there are enough holes in the bin it’ll burn with very little smoke and there’ll be no burnt paper bits flying everywhere 

That’s what I do anyway 

 
Posted : 17/04/2025 5:29 pm
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Reminds me of the origami shop I used to work for.

Fantastic business but sadly it folded after 6 months

 
Posted : 17/04/2025 6:46 pm
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I used to go to that shop, but they started making you payper sheet. Which was to much of a price in crease.

 
Posted : 17/04/2025 7:16 pm
hardtailonly and Marko reacted
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Ooh, the papier mache brick idea is genius.

 

 
Posted : 17/04/2025 7:24 pm
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Make paper logs for your log burner / chimenea

https://www.paperlogmaker.co.uk/

 
Posted : 17/04/2025 7:46 pm
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Bury it.

 
Posted : 17/04/2025 7:51 pm
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A thousand sheets? And you have a shredder? 

There’s your answer. It won’t take long. Do it in batches if you have to. 

 
Posted : 17/04/2025 10:33 pm
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We had a *lot* more than 1000 sheets to dispose of from FiL's house. I bought one of these galvanised buckets and tended the fire for a couple of days while wife and her brother brought boxes of paperwork out into the garden. Worked very well. No neighbours though.

 
Posted : 17/04/2025 10:41 pm
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A thousand sheets? And you have a shredder? 

There’s your answer. It won’t take long

It bloody well will.  It's only a little thing. And disposing of the shredded material is not easy as the council only take one bag at a time.

 
Posted : 17/04/2025 11:21 pm
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It bloody well won't.

Christ i've done it with a half sized shredder before.

5 Sheets a pop, feed directly in after the last. You'll be done in under an hour.

Bin bag then close round a hoover, turn it on and it will crush down spin the bag to seal it and tie it off.

Then tape the bag like a parcel to hold it compressed.

 
Posted : 18/04/2025 12:04 am
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Posted by: DickBarton

Shred and add to a compost pile in batches...

That works, cardboard is good for composting, especially if used in layers, paper as good, if not better, because it’s thinner, and breaks down much quicker. 100 sheets, spread out then a layer of grass or leaves, rinse and repeat. That way, you’ll have safely disposed of the information, and contributed to the good health of the garden.

 
Posted : 18/04/2025 3:01 am
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I know the volunteer group that manages our local bonfire night. Four or five times over the years I've cleared out a whole load of previous years general clutter; stuff like insurance, junk mail etc which while not confidential as such does have a load of personal info on it, put it into a large cardboard box along with anything else flammable, taped it up and taken it up to the bonfire as they're building it. 

If it's packed tightly enough and buried within a load of pallets in the middle of the fire it'll burn right down without releasing any flying bits of burning paper.

A couple of people within the volunteer group did similar after that although it was always kept quite low-key, the last thing anyone wanted was for the community bonfire to be a disposal heap for the entire neighbourhood or risk having things like aerosol cans hidden in it.

 
Posted : 18/04/2025 7:42 am
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I took a load to one of those storage places I’m sure it wasn’t anywhere near £50.

 
Posted : 18/04/2025 8:03 am
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It bloody well will.  It's only a little thing. And disposing of the shredded material is not easy as the council only take one bag at a time.

I’m sticking to my guns on this! Anything else that means you have to drive anywhere, buy something, do something else you wouldn’t normally do will take longer than just actually feeding a few pages into the shredder!
 
we have a tiddly home one. 2-3 sheets at a time is all it can cope with 
 
even that does nearly a hundred sheets a minute, and if it overheats it cuts and you come back later when it’s cooled and do more.
 
it’ll pack down into one bag - a thousand sheets is only a stack less than six inches thick. 

of course if it’s loads more than a thousand that’s different, but *really* don’t go buy anything. Or go drop it somewhere for shredding - it won’t cost £50-60.
 
Posted : 18/04/2025 8:34 am
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I’m sticking to my guns on this! Anything else that means you have to drive anywhere, buy something, do something else you wouldn’t normally do will take longer than just actually feeding a few pages into the shredder!

Exactly, it's just a non problem.

Even with thousands and thousands a few session with the headphones in and it would be done.

Paper mache bricks... 🤣 Youbwill have two by the end of all that faff.

 
Posted : 18/04/2025 1:59 pm
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Paper shredders do tend to heat up quite easily.

biggish cats love to tear up loose rolls and cardboard boxes.

maybe drop off the paper at your nearest zoo?

 
Posted : 21/04/2025 8:55 pm
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feeding a few pages into the shredder

That's what I've done before. A stack half this size (I don't know if it's 1000 sheets, I haven't counted them, but it's a stack about 45cm high) big took me a whole afternoon sat on the floor with an overheating shredder last time. AND as I told you already the council won't take loads of bags at once so the bags would be hanging around the house for ages. It's not like I've not done this before, I have, and it was grim, hence asking for ideas.

 
Posted : 21/04/2025 9:02 pm
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The obvious answer aside,

Who TF has a pet cougar in their house?! 👀

 
Posted : 21/04/2025 9:04 pm
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After several deaths in the family I had some stacks of paper to get rid of...I ended up buying a £40 cross shredder...  it took me a while to get through the stack of documents I needed to shred, as it will only take about 5 pages at a time without laboring the motor, but if you just do it once per day until it's bin is full, it's a 5 min job  every day...you'll get through it soon enough.

I looked into secure disposal companies, but it would have cost me more then the price of buying my own decent shredder.

So I got a free shredder out of it, looking at it that way.

 

The waste, I just crammed into my weekly paper recycling box. Job jobbed.

 
Posted : 21/04/2025 9:17 pm

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