Caution: Personal or In-Office Shredders Can be Dangerous!

Don’t take unnecessary chances by shredding documents on your own.  Hire a professional on-site document shredding service, here’s why;

Fire Hazard

April 1, 2008

The culprit behind the fire at Maricopa High School Friday night was a malfunctioning paper shredder.

June 8, 2015

Shredder explosion causes fire in Milledgeville.

“One of my employees was shredding some documents and the shredder blew up and very quickly the office caught on fire.”

May 14, 2015

Fire at bank believed to be started by paper shredder.

Firefighters from several stations spent a number of hours tackling a fire in a bank near Plymouth early at 3.20am on 12th May 2015, which was believed to have been started by an office paper shredder.

January 30, 2018

A paper shredder sparked an emergency at a doctor’s surgery center in Lancaster, say firefighters.

An office cleaner discovered the unfolding emergency at about 4:20am.

In-office and personal shredders are fire hazards in a number of ways.

• Paper going through a small shredder generates a lot of heat. Paper mixed with heat is a recipe for disaster concerning fire.
• The process of shredding paper creates dust. That dust is air born and with the heat created by the shredder blades, it can cause an explosion.
• Paper getting jammed in a shredder can cause the shredder’s motor to overheat and cause a fire.
• Small shredders that are left plugged in could get a power surge that causes the motor to overheat and cause a fire.
• Small shredders have automatic settings, so as you feed the paper through it will start the shredder. Automatic settings could malfunction and start running, which could overheat the motor and cause a fire.

Conclusion

Shredding documents is not the first thing on everyone’s mind, and as a result papers that need to be destroyed accumulate.  With this in mind, personal shredders become overtaxed because they are being used to destroy much more paper than they were designed for. This fact in itself is what increases the likelihood that they may overheat and potentially cause a fire.

Information security experts recommend having a regular schedule for shredding your personal files and business records to keep them out of the hands of identity thieves.  The easiest and safest way to accomplish that is with a professional document destruction service.  They will provide you with lockable security containers, for you to dispose of your papers in.  On a regular schedule they will then come and empty the containers and shred the contents.  It is easier, safer and more convenient.

Time Shred Services is a local on-site shredding service that provides document destruction to the businesses and residents located in Manhattan, Brooklyn, Bronx, Staten Island, Queens, Nassau County, Suffolk County, Westchester and New Jersey.  For more information give us a call or contact us through our website.