| The right paper shredder can offer protection
More and more people are victims of identity theft. High-tech methods to raid your confidential data are increasing. But the old-fashioned way -- rifling through someone's trash -- is still the top technique. It's easy to protect yourself -- get a paper shredder. Kirk Herath, the chief privacy officer for Nationwide insurance, says that every home should have one. Quality paper shredders for your home are quite affordable, from $50 up to $150. Here's what to consider: Paper shredders come in two varieties: strip and cross-cut. According to Consumer Reports, cross-cut shredders (which chop documents into confetti) work the best. Strip shredders only cut documents into strips that fairly easily can be reconstructed.
How to recycle copies of OJ's book.
Everything comes down to soil in the end. You've probably heard that Rupert Murdoch and his publishing company HarperCollins decided not to publish If I Did It, a description by O.J. Simpson of how things would have gone down a dozen years ago if he had in fact killed his former wife Nicole Brown Simpson and her friend Ronald Goldman. Unfortunately, HarperCollins had printed some 400,000 copies of the book before they got the word from Mr. Murdoch. Now, HarperCollins has nearly half a million books to destroy. If the books weigh about a pound each, that comes out to 200 tons of paper. I have one word for the publisher: compost. Publishers routinely go to professional shredding companies to dispose of books that aren't selling. (The shredding trade group bears the portentous name National Association for Information Destruction.) If you'd been diligently reading Recycling Today, you'd know that Random House recently purchased its own Bollegraaf system for shredding and baling at its Crawfordsville, Ind., book-destruction facility.
5 New Year's Resolutions You Can Tackle By January 15
1) Organize Your Files for the Year & Create an E-file Cabinet Paper is the number one source of clutter in today's households, and couples constantly feel behind the eight ball with bills because they get stuck in a pile of catalogs and ads. The good news is that it truly takes no more than two hours to get your files organized for the year-and get rid of that clutter for good. (Logo: http://www.newscom.com/cgi-bin/prnh/20060516/NYTU145LOGO ) All you need is your computer; an alphabetized accordion folder; labels that you can print out on Post-it sticky picture paper from TheNest.com/organizer; and a paper shredder. The cheat sheet to organizing your files, found on TheNest.com, says to get started with this list of must- save documents, and, unless it's a deed, will, your taxes or a title, only keep a year's worth on file.
Officials use shredder to recycle unneeded records
The presence of a mobile paper-shredding truck outside the Cole County Courthouse Friday morning had some people calling the newspaper with questions and news tips.
But officials said the shredder was part of the county's routine business.“We shredded the remaining blank ballots from the last election, and then we shredded (records from) the last two elections that were over 21 months old," said Cole County Clerk Marvin Register. “We only have to keep those for 21 months."Prosecutor Bill Tackett also has paper documents that, on a regular basis, get recycled through the shredding process.After the documents are stored electronically, he said, “They come in every so often and they're shredded after that."No paper is destroyed if the law says it's supposed to be saved, Tackett said.Register said his office doesn't have space to keep the older, voted ballots, when there no longer is any chance for a recount demand and state law no longer requires them to be held.“We only have to keep those for 21 months," he said.“From now on, I will always use that shredder after each election to shred the remaining, unused ballots.“We don't need them, and (this way) there's none around that anybody can ever get ahold of do anything with."
.
|
