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9 Documents You Should Shred for Your Safety

July 3, 2023 · Personal Finance
documents you should shred
Photo by WeenaCK from Shutterstock

Use multi-cut scissors

You don’t own a shredding machine, and you need a fast method to get rid of some documents. No worries! A pair of multi-cut scissors will get the job done in the blink of an eye. They make multiple cuts at once, so it kind of works like a shredder, except that you must do the job. Since it won’t work for any type of document, consider using this method combined with other methods from the list.

Shredded paper being mixed into a compost bin with vegetable scraps and rich soil.
Mix shredded paper and vegetable scraps in a compost bin to recycle sensitive documents into nutrient-rich soil.

Add them to your compost

Are you seeking an efficient, eco-friendly method to shred your documents? Try adding the documents after you use the multi-cut scissors to your compost along with other items like food, coffee, and filters. Because most of the documents are printed on softer paper, they will break down very easily in the compost pile.

However, if you choose this method, make sure you don’t throw in glossy paper. This type of paper is usually harder to shred, plus it contains a higher level of chemicals compared to regular paper.

A close-up of hands tearing a confidential document into small, unreadable fragments.
Tearing a confidential document by hand is a quick way to protect your signature and private information.

Shred them by hand

Indeed, this method is not as efficient as the previous ones, but you can still combine them for good results. It’s simple and doesn’t require too much effort, except for your skilled hands!

Make sure to rip the documents into many pieces before manually shredding them. Additionally, I strongly advise separating the different shredded pieces into distinct trash or recycling bins. By doing this, the likelihood that someone may discover all of a certain document’s components in your trash or recycle bin is reduced.

If you find this article about documents you should shred for security reasons useful, you can also check out 5 Surprising Things You Can’t Return To Amazon.

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9 comments on “9 Documents You Should Shred for Your Safety”

  1. jojo says:
    August 13, 2025 at 12:49 am

    whats the point of shredding photos when they are all over social media?

    Reply
  2. Lisa says:
    August 7, 2025 at 11:14 pm

    Thinking about all the documents mentioned, as a genealogists, i can say many of these are available online to access/download and not all are for dead folks. Also, you can find many of them and old photos as well uploaded to family trees.

    Reply
  3. Toni Ann Zafoot says:
    March 31, 2025 at 6:40 pm

    Excellent information will put it to good use

    Reply
  4. Kls says:
    February 2, 2025 at 1:41 pm

    Why would anyone destroy a birth certificate? You need that to get a passport, among other things.

    Reply
  5. Robin says:
    January 31, 2025 at 5:20 am

    Thanks for placement to go

    Reply
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