How to Prepare Documents for Shredding

How to Prepare Documents for Shredding: Staples, Paper Clips, Binders, Boxes & More

If you are getting ready for a professional shredding service, you may be wondering how to prepare documents for shredding and what needs to be removed before your paperwork is destroyed.

The good news is that professional industrial shredders are designed to handle much more than ordinary home or office shredders.

In most cases, you do not need to spend hours removing staples, paper clips, file folders, or rubber bands before your shredding appointment.

Here is what you need to know before preparing your documents for secure destruction.

Do I Need to Remove Staples Before Shredding?

No.

You generally do not need to remove staples before professional document shredding.

Commercial and industrial shredding equipment is designed to process documents containing ordinary office staples without requiring customers to remove them individually.

This can save a significant amount of preparation time, especially when destroying years of old business records or personal files.

Do I Need to Remove Paper Clips Before Shredding?

No.

Standard paper clips can typically remain attached to your documents.

Professional shredding equipment is designed to handle common office fasteners such as:

• Staples

• Paper clips

• Binder clips

• Rubber bands

• File-folder fasteners

• Metal file hangers

This means you can usually place complete files into your shredding material without taking every document apart.

Can Hanging File Folders Be Shredded?

Yes, in most cases.

Standard paper hanging file folders and their small metal support pieces can generally be processed with your confidential documents.

You do not normally need to remove every document from its file folder before professional shredding.

This is especially helpful during:

• File-room cleanouts

• Office moves

• Records-retention purges

• Warehouse cleanouts

• Home-office cleanouts

• Large one-time shredding projects

Do Rubber Bands Need to Be Removed?

No.

Ordinary rubber bands can generally remain around stacks of paper being prepared for professional shredding.

However, extremely large amounts of non-paper materials should still be removed whenever practical.

Do I Need to Remove Three-Ring Binders?

Yes.

Unlike staples and paper clips, three-ring binders should generally be removed before paper shredding.

Binders contain significant amounts of plastic, metal, vinyl, and other non-paper material that can interfere with the paper recycling process.

Before your shredding service, simply remove the documents from the binder and place the loose paperwork with the rest of your shredding material.

The empty binder can then be reused, donated, or disposed of separately.

What Plastic Items Should Be Removed Before Shredding?

For paper shredding, it is a good idea to remove larger plastic or non-paper items such as:

• Three-ring binders

• Plastic folders

• Large plastic sleeves

• Thick plastic covers

• Plastic storage containers

• Spiral notebooks with large plastic coils

• Electronic devices

Small amounts of ordinary office material are generally not a problem, but keeping large plastic items out of the paper stream helps maintain cleaner recyclable material.

Can Cardboard Boxes Be Shredded?

No.

Cardboard boxes should not be placed into the paper shredding equipment.

If your documents are stored in cardboard banker boxes, moving boxes, or file-storage boxes, the paper documents are removed from the boxes and shredded separately.

The cardboard boxes remain with the customer and can usually be reused or recycled.

This is important to know when preparing for a large office purge or records-storage cleanout.

Should I Remove Documents From Envelopes?

Generally, no.

Paper envelopes can usually be shredded along with the documents inside them.

There is normally no need to open every envelope or separate the paper contents unless the envelope contains a large plastic component or another material that should not enter the paper recycling stream.

Do File Folders Need to Be Removed?

No.

Standard paper file folders can generally be shredded along with the documents they contain.

This includes many:

• Manila folders

• Colored paper folders

• Hanging file folders

• Paper dividers

• Paper tabs

Leaving documents inside ordinary file folders can make preparing a large shredding project much faster.

Can Credit Cards Be Shredded?

Yes, but they should be handled separately from ordinary paper when required by the destruction equipment being used.

Professional destruction services may be able to securely destroy:

• Credit cards

• Debit cards

• Identification cards

• Membership cards

• Access cards

• Gift cards

If you have a large quantity of plastic cards, let your shredding provider know before service so they can be handled using the appropriate destruction process.

What Can Be Destroyed Besides Paper?

Professional destruction services can handle much more than confidential paper documents.

At MicroShred, we also provide secure destruction services for many types of electronic media, data-storage devices, and non-paper materials, including:

• Computer hard drives

• Solid-State Drives (SSDs)

• External hard drives

• USB flash drives

• Thumb drives

• Backup tapes

• Magnetic tapes

• CDs

• DVDs

• Floppy disks

• Zip disks

• Memory cards

• Credit cards

• Identification cards

• Company uniforms

• Branded merchandise

• Proprietary products

• Other sensitive materials

These materials are not processed through the same compartment used for ordinary paper shredding.

Paper Shredding vs. Hard Drive and Media Destruction

Different materials require different destruction equipment.

At MicroShred, our mobile shredding trucks are equipped with separate destruction systems for paper and harder non-paper materials.

One compartment is designed for secure paper shredding, while another is specifically designed for materials such as:

• Computer hard drives

• Solid-state drives

• Electronic media

• Backup media

• Other non-paper materials

This allows customers to securely destroy multiple types of confidential materials during the same service visit.

How Should I Prepare for a Shredding Appointment?

Preparing for professional shredding is usually very simple.

You can generally leave:

• Staples

• Paper clips

• Binder clips

• Rubber bands

• Paper file folders

• Hanging file folders

• Paper envelopes

You should generally remove:

• Three-ring binders

• Large plastic items

• Cardboard boxes

• Electronic devices that require separate destruction

• Large quantities of non-paper materials

If you are unsure about a particular item, ask before your scheduled service rather than spending unnecessary time separating materials.

Can I Leave My Documents in Banker Boxes?

Yes.

Documents can remain inside cardboard banker boxes while being stored or transported to the shredding location.

However, the cardboard box itself is not shredded with the paper.

At the time of service, the documents are emptied from the box into the shredding equipment or secure collection container, and the empty cardboard box is left behind for reuse or recycling.

What Is the Fastest Way to Prepare a Large Shredding Project?

For a large records purge, avoid unnecessary preparation.

There is generally no reason to:

• Remove every staple

• Pull out every paper clip

• Remove documents from paper folders

• Remove every rubber band

• Sort documents by color

• Separate confidential from non-confidential paper if you are using a Shred-All approach

Instead, focus primarily on removing large non-paper items such as binders, cardboard, and plastic.

This can dramatically reduce the amount of time required to prepare thousands of documents for destruction.

Secure Document Shredding in South Florida

MicroShred provides secure document shredding, hard drive destruction, electronic media destruction, and product destruction throughout South Florida, including Miami-Dade, Broward County, and Palm Beach County.

We offer shredding services for:

• Businesses

• Government agencies

• Medical offices

• Law firms

• Financial institutions

• Property-management companies

• Small businesses

• Home offices

• Individuals

Whether you are preparing a few boxes of personal paperwork or an entire records room for destruction, professional shredding makes the process faster and easier by eliminating much of the document preparation required by small office shredders.

Preparing for Shredding Is Easier Than You Think

Professional shredding does not require you to carefully remove every staple, paper clip, folder, or rubber band from your records.

In most cases, simply remove large plastic items, three-ring binders, cardboard boxes, and materials requiring specialized destruction, and leave the rest to the professional shredding equipment.

This makes secure document destruction faster, easier, and far less time-consuming for both businesses and individuals.