Sensitive documents

[jazzactivist]

Hi all. How do you get rid of your senstive documents eg bank statements, old cheque books, credit card statements, cashline mini statements etc that contain information that a fraudster or identity thief could use? In my old house we used to burn them in the woodstove, but here there isn't one, so I am wondering what to do. Thanks.

[keepersdaughter]

We have a shredder Jazz. for a while we just tore stuff up, but you really have to do it well.

[Clunkshift]

For some years we have removed every name and address from envelopes and spam mail before recycling and we shred all documents with names, numbers, etc.
The downside is that our local council doesn't accept shredded paper for recycling. So I have no ethical conscience about burning it with other garden clippings like laurel which are no good for recycling/mulching in summer or putting it on the open fire in winter.

I have considered buying a chimnea for this purpose, but swmbo doesn't like them.

In spite of this, I have had several attempts to open accounts in my name and someone did manage it with the Halifax building society and it took almost a year for me to convince them that it was a fraudulent account and to stop them sending me demands.

So we always shred and burn.

p.s. now you know the reason for my icon picture!

[dragonfly]

I too shred all personal mail then I put the shredded paper in the compost bin. It soon rots down (especially when soaked in urine) and leaves no trace.

[keepersdaughter]

Dragonfly, you can't imagine the images running through my mind. Do you go out in the garden and tinkle on your compost???

[jazzactivist]

In the absence of any sort of open fire, and living in an area where no bonfires are alllowed, I find the idea of composting it quite appealing. Piddling on your compost is meant to be good for it, so says Bob Flowerdew, but the only time that I tried it turned out to be embarrasing. I managed to pee into an old jug very early in the morning. Carried it outside to the compost bin, only to discover my neighbour and her young daughter who couldn't sleep out in their garden just on the other side of the compost bin. Of course, they started chatting to me while I stood there with a jug of steaming pee in my hand, and the child, of course, asked whether I had brought them some juice!

I just read in an old Permaculture magazine that someone feeds their shredded sensitive docs into their wormery, and someone else says that they use the shreds as guineapig bedding.

[dragonfly]

KD I tinkle in an old potty then put in the shreddings and let them soak it up then put it on the compost heap.
Jazz I would find it embarrasing to meet someone on the way to the compost heap. I try to put household peelings on top just in case.

[Rustic Pumpkin]

I shred and burn. The ash then gets sprinkled over the garden.

So now you have a tinkler and a sprinkler!

[lesleyhannah]

I shred and put in the recycling bin. Live in a flat so no compost heap to pee on. Hadn't occurred to me that councils might object to recycling shredded paper, Clunk. I'm a bit neurotic about identity theft. A few weeks after my husband died I started getting letters from a bailiffs' company, demanding hundreds of pounds, apparently for motoring offences committed by a person living at our address. Letters to the bailiffs were met with silence, and their phone was always on the answer machine. Then they sent further threats saying they had the legal right to knock my door down and remove my property if I didn't pay the bills. This was when my mind was already like cotton wool and I was struggling to hold things together as it was. I imagined them breaking into the flat in the middle of the night, and emptying it of everything that had any meaning for me. In the end I paid a solicitor, who (I think) sent utility bills to prove the man named on the document had never lived at my address. It was a terrifying experience, and I have no idea where this person got our address from - but suspect it may have been from old documents I threw out with my husband's name and address on.

Since then I've heard of several other people who've suffered the same thing. So - my shredded documents go into the recycle bin. Now of course I'll be worrying in case the council decides to prosecute me for illegal recycling!

[franbee]

LesleyH, we are allowed to recycle our shredded paper provided it is contained, ie not loose and blowing around. We usually cram it into a paper bag, or a cereal box, which they will also accept.

[annie fenbug]

We've had a few odd letters that indicate our address has been used - fortunately nothing as alarming as Lesley's experience but someone with a Chinese-sounding name ran up a few parking fines in Leicester a few years ago - it wasn't that difficult to persuade the police the car had been registered with a false address but it's worrying how easy it seems to be to do so.

I either tear up and compost (& I'm a Bob Flowerdew disciple too!), or it goes into papier mache sculpture if I'm in art mode. I often do big pieces which take up loads of paper & by the time I've finished with it, there's no way anyone would be able to read it (which is why the Accounts dept at work regularly present me with the draft management accounts for the latest creation!).

[jazzactivist]

Creative sculpture sounds like an excellent way to use up unwanted documents, annie fenbug - making something beautiful out of something problematic. When I was working at the university I asked the dept if I could have some of the shredded paper for my compost bin, but pretty soon I was overwhelmed with the amount. Every day several binbags of shredded paper were left outside my room door! I did try to get other staff interested in it, and two who kept goats started taking it for bedding. However, it was a city based university and most of the staff didn't even have window boxes. I had to stop as I had too much, but I did think that if it could be fireproofed in some way it would make good home insulation. Your comments have inspired me, I have just received a lot of shredded paper as protection in some boxes of jewellery making tools and I am going to try incorporating it into felting and knitting to see what happens.

[ditzydaizy]

Shred twice and then onto the compost