What paperwork to shred ?

coffeehound

At one time, there was advice to shred (or otherwise securely destroy) anything with your name and address on it. Is this still the case?

Be interested to hear what posters view as shred-worthy and what is considered not necessary these days. TVM.

chrisw

I still shred anything with my name and address on it.

-taff

Anything with a name and address starts the fire off.

Ectophile

I don't bother if it's just a name and address - that information is hardly secret.


I will shred or burn if it actually has personal information, or anything that could be used for fraud.

EssexExile

My name & address is public knowledge, only stuff with private information is shredded.

JimmyChanga

I shred anything with a name and address. Yes, they may be able to get that information from some database but why make it easy for them. People can use bills as proofs as well to buy mobile phone contracts and the like.

If there's a lot of paperwork I usually just rip the name and address part out by hand and then throw them in the shredder at the end. The odd one just shred by hand.

Pollyflinders

OH is paranoid about shredding anything with even a first name on, such as the middle part of Debenhams voucher letters.

Kiran

I shred most stuff but mainly because it gets composted so breaks down quickly. Not for any security reason, as mentioned above its pretty much all public knowledge

PasturesNew

I shred anything confidential - for general items I just rip my name/address bits off and shred those 2" square bits, putting the faceless/anonymous standard letters in the regular recycling.

coffeehound

Thanks for the posts - useful info. I have four large boxes of old papaerwork to go through so want to minimise the amount of shredding. Will follow the advice to remove just the name + address to shred on non-sensitive docs. Good news that the local waste company do accept shredding in the paper+card recycling bin, so that makes life easier.

dunroving

coffeehound wrote: »

Thanks for the posts - useful info. I have four large boxes of old papaerwork to go through so want to minimise the amount of shredding. Will follow the advice to remove just the name + address to shred on non-sensitive docs. Good news that the local waste company do accept shredding in the paper+card recycling bin, so that makes life easier.

You could look for paper shredding companies in your local area. Some of them aren't too expensive, and it would save you the hassle.

I shredded about 6 boxes of confidential documents and it took quite a long time. I had to keep stopping because the shredder was overheating.