how to get rid of (loads of) confidential waste?

[bytheseaside]

Moving house and need to get rid of several bin bags worth of confidential waste (old bank statements etc etc) We can't have a bonfire, and its way too much for our small domestic shredder! Any ideas?

There are companies that will dispose of commercial waste, although it might be cheaper to fork out £50 for s decent shredder.

My mum uses a service whereby they come to your house with a huge shredder on a van and they shred it all for you as you watch. Might be worth seeing if there is a similar one near you? She lives in Portsmouth..... :)

This is a weird and may not work for you. A colleague of mine put his papers in the sink with water, reduced them to a "papier-mâché" mush, squeezed the water out and then chucked them.

I do something similar, if I have a lot.

Soak with water, squash, wait until recycling day then throw the squashed lump in the recycling bin, shortly before they arrive. Within minutes it is in the back of the truck and most unlikely anyone will try to pull bits of paper out of the lump. Also they cannot blow away.

If you have a charcoal barbie with a kettle top, or a chiminea, you can put heaps of paper on the grill once it is well alight. The ash will blow about though if you are not careful.

Thanks for great ideas!

If you or your DH work in a big office, you could smuggle in 1 carrier bag full every day and either shred it or stick it in the confidential bins there. May take a while to get through 6 binbags full though!

You can also put paper in a compost heap.

I cart mine into office and put through confidential waste there

more great ideas :)

I compost all confidential papers. Although we did used to have a gerbil called Shredder...she did a great job!

As I don't have a shredder or compost bin can I just block out with a permanent marker ? Is that safe or is it easy to see through. ?

Ha ha wellwisher , your post made me laugh! This is what I did recently. Took a handful of papers in each day for a couple of weeks. felt quite naughty doing it although in reality my work wouldn't have minded anyway