These days it’s not just businesses that use shredders. An increasing number of home users purchase paper shredders to shred their own personal and sensitive documents.
These include the following:
- Old bank and credit card statements
- Receipts that are no longer needed
- Expired driving licenses
- Old payslips
- Anything else that contains a person’s name and address
Certain shredders can also be used to shred old credit cards, CDs and DVDs.
Shredding such documents can help to protect you falling victim to identity theft and fraud. However, in the case of bank and credit card statements you may want to hold on to them for a number of years before shredding as you may need these for a variety of reasons, e.g. proving income history for loans and mortgage applications, providing evidence for claiming back bank charges etc.
For more information on how to choose the right shredder see our article Selecting the Right Shredder or click here for our range of Home Shredders
n.b. This article was updated in February 2014
