Recycling is integral to many of our routines, with most homes across the UK having at least one recycling bin collection and one general waste bin. Paper and card is one of the most widely offered services from councils, and has a very high uptake from residents.
Paper documents containing personal information should always be shredded before recycling, to reduce the risk of identity theft from your information falling into the wrong hands.
While the chance of your recycling bin being rummaged through on a given collection day is low, if you’re routinely putting documents containing your name and address into your bin, over time the risk rises.
What Are The Risks Of Failing To Shred Personal Information?
If criminals get hold of your personal information, it can be used to build a picture of you and your life for malicious purposes.
A good example of this is financial fraud. The obvious example would be to get information about you in order to try to convince a bank that they are the owner of your bank account – however, they’re a lot more devious once they build up a fact file on victims of data theft.
A common trend in recent years has been criminals contacting their victims by phone, posing as bank employees. There are all sorts of ways that people can get your phone number, ranging from asking neighbours when pretending to deliver a parcel to intercepting Bluetooth or Wi-Fi communications – for example when sending your contact card electronically to a friend, colleague or family member.
Put that together with finding a letter from your bank in the wheelie bin, and it’s easy to see how simple it is for someone to call you, knowing who you bank with. They may also see your account number and sort code in the document too – so it’s all too easy to convince you that they really are the bank.
Of course, we can only be so careful, so shouldn’t be too paranoid about being victims of identity theft. Just taking a few simple steps like buying a paper shredder makes things far less easy to use for criminals.
Here’s some examples on Amazon to consider – you can see how inexpensive they are, especially compared to the potential cost of someone getting into your bank account.
Paper Shredders
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Bonsaii Paper Shredder for Home Use, 6 Sheet Cross Cut Shredder, Shred Credit Card/Staples/Clips, Shredder for Home & Small Office Use, Home Shredder with Portable Handle Design & 13L Bin (C237-B)
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ECONO Strip Cut 6 Sheet Paper Shredder 10 Litre Bin Cut Size 6mm Security Level P2 Credit Card Shredder for Home use office use
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Bonsaii 8-Sheet Cross Cut Paper Shredder, Credit Cards/Mail/Staples/Clips Shredder for Home Use with 16 Litres Bin (C261-C)
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Bonsaii Paper Shredder for Home Use, 8-Sheet StripCut Home Office Shredder, CD/Credit Card Shredder Machine with Overheat Protection, 13 Litres Wastebasket, Black (S120-C)
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Bonsaii 6-Sheet Strip-Cut Paper Shredder, Small Paper Shredder for Home Use, Can be Used Without Bin, Extendable Arm Design with Overheat Protection, 9 Liter Bin, S123-A
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Are Some Paper Shredders Better Than Others?
While shredding documents at all is better than chucking them into the recycling bin intact, some shredders create much smaller fragments of paper than others.
Cross cut shredders are generally considered the best way to make documents unusable, so if you want to be really careful, spending a little more on one of these is likely wise, if only for peace of mind.
Let’s look at this list again, this time only including those units offering cross cut:
Cross Cut Paper Shredders
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Bonsaii Paper Shredder for Home Use, 6 Sheet Cross Cut Shredder, Shred Credit Card/Staples/Clips, Shredder for Home & Small Office Use, Home Shredder with Portable Handle Design & 13L Bin (C237-B)
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Bonsaii 8-Sheet Cross Cut Paper Shredder, Credit Cards/Mail/Staples/Clips Shredder for Home Use with 16 Litres Bin (C261-C)
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Bonsaii 12-Sheet Cross Cut Paper Shredder, 5-Minute 21L Home Office Heavy Duty Shredder for Paper, Credit Card, Mails, Staples, with Transparent Window, High Security Level P-4 (C275-A)
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Fellowes Powershred FS-6C 6 Sheet Cross Cut Personal Shredder for Home and Office Use – 15 Litre Bin – Security Level P4 – Amazon Exclusive, Black, Standard
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Paper Shredder for Home Use – Fellowes 6C 6 Sheet Cross Cut Paper Shredder for Home Office Use – Powershred Personal Shredder with Safety Lock & 11 Litre Bin – Security Level P4 – Black
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What Documents Should I Shred?
How much of your recycling waste you shred is a personal decision, but at the very least you should be destroying financial documents before they go into the bin.
These include:
- Bank statements
- Letters from the bank
- Annual interest statements
- Personal Identification Number (PIN) notifications
At the other end of the spectrum you may wish to shred anything with your information on it. The is very much where I stand, and it does take more effort, but helps me sleep better at night!
When I say anything with my information on it, I mean that literally. Anything that goes on the paper recycling bin that contains information specific to me gets shredded. That information might be:
- My name
- My address
- My phone number
- My email address
- My Birthday/Date Of Birth
- Any information I might use in online or telephone passwords
- Any above items of data about people living in the same house
Commonly shredded items that contain the above information include:
- Letters
- Advertising material (when addressed to me personally)
- Statements
- Address labels from deliveries (eg Amazon)
- Birthday cards
- Medication labels
- Kids school communications (reports, letters etc)
Common Items People Don’t Think To Shred
There are a couple of things that people don’t think about throwing into the pile of paper to shred ahead of recycling collections. Let’s highlight those as you may wish to do so.
Envelopes
Generally, we’re good at shredding envelopes if the name and address are physically written on them, but much less so when it’s a windowed version where the name and address are on the letter inside.
This is much less of an issue than it used to be, as banks (in particular) are much wiser to identity theft than they were in the past. However, the issue as that some banks use distinctive envelopes.
They may look generic to the untrained eye, but criminals might know instantly which bank uses that style of envelope. Some also have a ‘return to sender’ address printed on them, which likely gives at least a clue to who you bank with.
Home Printed Documents
From time to time, there are things that we print out. For example, in our household the weekly shop is delivered and we get an email before it arrives detailing what we’ve ordered, what was and wasn’t available, and if anything has been substituted.
That list gets printed out, so we can check that what arrives matches what the supermarket thinks they sent. In addition, it gets scribbled on if anything is damaged, mouldy, or has anything else we need to claim a refund for.
A lot of people would simply throw a document like that into their recycling bin, but it’s another example of something to consider shredding.
At the very least, it will likely have you name and address on, but it also reveals your weekly shopping delivery slot. To give a simple example of why that could be a problem, that would make it easier for a bad actor to call you before the delivery to claim the card was declined and to ask for an alternative payment method to avoid the delivery being cancelled.
Of course, the delivery was never in doubt, but if you’re caught off guard, you’d assume it was the supermarket you’ve just given another set of card details to.
Simply choosing to shred the paper before it goes into the recycling bin for collection reduces the chance of falling victim to scammers – in my book that’s worth the cost of buying a good quality paper shredder.
Can Shredded Paper Be Recycled
We’ve got a full article on shredded paper recycling, but a common question is whether shredded paper can go into your recycling bins for collection.
The short answer is yes it can always be recycled, it’s just paper after all. The more detailed answer is that not all areas allow shredded paper in wheelie bin collections, although that’s beginning to improve. You can read that article on our site here.
