I like to find out about all kinds of different things, and I am always asking questions, wondering ‘why’. So, I was looking up the term confetti in relation to confetti shredders and how it came about in everyday language use. In particular I found this article on the wikipedia web site that I thought was interesting.

Did you know for example that a single piece of confetti is called ‘confetto’ as it comes from the Italian language meaning a hard sugar-coated almond sweet. Confetti is generally coloured paper or plastic and not shiny. (which would be ‘glitter’)

The confetti shredder, often also known as cross cut paper shredders, are part of a group of shredders that cut the documents up into smaller pieces. Documents shredded by this means are more difficult to reconstruct and therefore are more secure from identity theft and theft by business competitors. Strip cut paper shredders are less secure because they cut the documents up into strips and it is possible with time and effort to reconstruct these documents without too much technology.

In this case, ‘confetti’, as we understand it, is a misnomer as only the most expensive and secure cross cut paper shredders will cut paper to the size of traditional small confetti. In practice, most confetti shredders will cut the paper into strips of an inch or two in length.

Where your needs are for normal small office or home use the confetti shredder should be adequate for most purposes, however where you are shredding documents of a sensitive nature to your business it is wise to err on the side of caution.

Many larger companies have big and powerful shredders that can be adjusted for size of strip and there are also paper-shredding services that can be hired whenever they are needed. Some people think that to have your own shredder is more reliable and safer as you can see what is happening to the documents you wish to be shredded. However, according to some of the customer reviews on Amazon, it is sometimes difficult to find a robust and dependable confetti shredder which does not break down after a few months usage.

Good cross cut paper shredders do exist, but care is needed in selecting the correct one for your office needs.

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While I was doing some searching online, I read an article the other day by Ben Rothke that was all about paper shredding. It was not about the cross cut paper shredder on its own, however there is a small section devoted to some of the benefits of cross cut paper shredding as opposed to strip cut shredding. The general tone of the article was more about the general mindset behind the practice - from a security point of view and how it was now possible to more easily reconstruct shredded documents.

We all know ID theft is supposed to be on the rise, and some of us have heard about friends of friends who have been a victim of this. However this article tries to draw a line midway between being paranoid and being careful about what you throw away. It does illustrate the need to be more thoughtful about your documents and how you dispose of them.

What I found particularly interesting was that the author describes how a company has made a business out of piecing back together the strips from both strip shredders and also the smaller pieces from a cross cut paper shredder. I think that most of us feel that it is not viable for our competitors to raid our garbage and have our shreds reconstructed. Not so however, as this company first scans the pieces, gives each a unique id number and then uses software to reconstruct the pages.

This is an interesting article about document security issues and how it is possible after using strip cut shredders or even the cross cut paper shredder, your sensitive information may be able to be reconstructed. Read the article here.

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