I like staying organized, one could say a little too much (or as my therapist puts it, “mild OCD”). This is going to read like an ad, but that’s because I’m just really excited about having a shredder now.

In addition to keeping the house tidy and my digital life clean, this involves keeping all relevant mail scanned, backed up, and nicely organized. Despite paperless opt-ins, banks, hospitals, and any random Joe love to send me physical mail. So I scan the letters, and if the contents are sensitive, file them with the hope that I’ll find a way to safely dispose in the future.

And then there’s junk mail. Average American household receives 848 pieces or 40-41 pounds of junk mail a year (according to widely cited but ultimately lost ForestEthics report). And that’s just junk mail. That’s 16 pieces of junk mail a week. Thankfully I’ve been able to reign that in with PaperKarma to 1-2 pieces of junk mail a week, but it still builds up. By the way, PaperKarma one-time lifetime membership is absolutely worth it - best $59.99 I ever spent. That’s not an ad, I just really like the product.

All that to say is that I’ve built up a lot of sensitive documents that need to be safely disposed of. I don’t feel comfortable just throwing those in my residential trash bin: US Supreme court ruled that dumpster diving is not a criminal activity. And while I (hopefully) don’t have the enemies required for someone to specifically target my trash cans, I just don’t feel great having my banking information or medical records being, you know, out there. I could take my documents to local UPS or FedEx location, but I wanted to do something at home. Lo and behold, a shredder:

That's my shredder. His name is Paper Destroyer.

Now, I’m not a fan of Amazon Basics business model - copy top product in a category, bump up their own products in Amazon search results, undercut competitors by low prices (often selling at a loss), and then raise the prices once the competitors are out of business. But their shredder is pretty cool, so I got one. For only $42.99 I became a proud owner of a P-4 security standard Amazon Basics shredder.

What’s a P-4, you ask me? DIN 66399 / ISO 21964 (Wikipedia) conveniently outline the following shredder security levels:

Level Use case
P-1 Non-sensitive documents, e.g. forms.
P-2 Internal documents, e.g. memos.
P-3 Personal information (e.g. addresses).
P-4 Financial and tax records.
P-5 Corporate balance sheets.
P-6 Patents & R&D documents.
P-7 Top secret intelligence documents.

With each level increase, the pieces get smaller. Anything P-3 and under doesn’t seem sufficient for sensitive documents, specifically because they allow for documents to be cut up in strips of any length. Levels P-4 and up require smaller and smaller particle size.

P-4 lands on pieces 6 mm or smaller. At this point piecing a single document back together is effectively an impossible task. P-5 (pieces less than 2 mm) is an overkill for personal data, and comes with a huge jump in price. P-4 it is.

Look at these shreds: never ending fun!

So here I am, having the time of my life with a Amazon Basics P-4 shredder. I’m sure there are other brands that could be better, or might follow more ethical practices - but this baby’s cheap, and it’s been a workhorse of the Osipov household. It can fill its attached bin before overheating, after which the little shredder needs to take a break for about an hour. But that’s a lot of documents!

I’ve been able to shred hundreds of scanned documents I stored, and guess what - this thing can even shred old credit cards (as long as they’re the plastic kind - sorry AMEX). I get giddy when I get mail because shredding things is just never-ending fun.

Yeah, I know it’s silly, but it’s such a therapeutic experience. There’s something magical about seeing your private information destroyed in front of your eyes. If you’re a dork like me, you should get a shredder. You’ll be a happier person.