The Fellowes P-40 Shredder --- One of The Worlds Toughest Shredders

In this new age of information, making sure that you are getting rid of documents that either have personal information, or non-public information is more important than ever. Having a shredder is an important aspect of dealing with all of this paperwork, and especially if you are working with information from secondary sources. You want to keep it private, and you don't want to be throwing away full sheets of information that are chalk full of it. Even crumpling it up to throw away won't work well enough, so you need a shredder that is going to annihilate that piece of paper. For one of our offices, the Fellowes P-40 Shredder is what has been put to great use. It's intended use is for homes, but if you have a small office with only a few users, I think this type of shredder works just as well as having a heavy duty one.

The Fellowes P-40 Shredder as I said is designed for limited use, which means that they recommend between 10-20 uses per day with it. This is not 10 to 20 pages, but 10 to 20 uses. For me, I know I won't need it 20 times in a singular day, and neither will anyone else I work with, so this is a useful tool for the people around me. Regarding how many pages you can put through at once it depends on what mode of shredding you end up going with. If you want a confetti cut (which basically shreds it down to confetti) you can put in between 4 and 8 pages at once. If you just want a normal strip cut (lengthwise) you can put in between 5 and 8 pages at once. So, if you have a small print out that you need to have shredded, you can end up going with either option depending on what you like better. It doesn't jam if you stay within the limits, so it does everything it advertises that it will.

The design for the is a pretty simple one, and it makes it look like a typical wastebasket from the bottom. At the bottom of the shredder actually IS a 4.5 gallon wastebasket for collecting all of the scraps from the shredding. You can choose whether you want to line the basket, or just let the paper fall into it, it is all about your own preference. But, if you line it, you can easily transport the waste without having to carry the whole shredder somewhere. At only about 10 or 11 pounds though, its not that much of a hassle if you do have to move it. On the front top of the shredder, there is a handle that lifts the the shredding components themselves back to open up the wastebasket. It is pretty simple in design, but I think it looks really cool compared to a portable shredder you would just hook to the side of a normal trash can.

On the very top of the The Fellowes P-40 Shredder you have the sheet capacity gauge, the Power switch a safety lock, and the entrance to the shredder blades itself. With the sheet capacity gauge you estimate how many sheets you are putting into the shredder by putting it into this little slot that will tell you if it is a good width to be putting into your blades. This helps speed up your process, while saving the blades from getting over-worked or jammed with too many pages on a single shred. The safety lock is exactly like it sounds, a lock that slides over the blades when you are not using the shredder to insure that you aren't leaving something sharp out that someone small could cut themselves on at home. Of course, finally, there is the entrance for the paper into the shredder across the top of the The Fellowes P-40 Shredder. Putting the paper in gets it shredded as song as you let go of it. the width of the cut is 1/4 inch if anyone is curious about that.

One thing that I find with the The Fellowes P-40 Shredder is that it can blend into the area pretty easily. A blackish/grayish color, it doesn't stand out all that much, but upon first look, you know exactly what it is. It sits out of the way, or slides back under a desk until you need to put it to use, so it isn't something that you will be tripping over everyday in any of your offices. I should point out again, that the recommended use is for a home setting, but as I explained, if you office is a small one, this shredder will work perfect there. If you stay within the limits of paper shredding at any given time, it does not jam, and it is very easy to empty out to insure you aren't over-flowing the devise. I highly recommend the The Fellowes P-40 Shredder and suggest it as a product that every home should have.