Make Shredding Joyful: Fellowes PS 70

I work for a state agency and when we purchase a new piece of office equipment it's a big deal. For years our office has begged for a paper shredder because a significant part of the job is keeping papers confidential, even the trash. The response has been “they burn out too quickly and are not cost effective.” But somehow this year we managed to acquire the Fellowes Powershred PS 70.

Wow…what a great day! I have shredded my guts out just to make sure the state will get its money’s worth.

Features

The paper shredder is positioned over a wastebasket. I put a garbage bag in the wastebasket, which makes emptying it very easy. This rectangle waste paper basket seems to have a fairly large capacity and since I am the only user of this shredder, I don't find myself emptying the basket more than once a week, which is more than adequate. If you have extremely large amounts of documents to be shredded, this could be a drawback.

When the basket is in place and the power is turned on, a green light is displayed on top. This means all is in working order and you can shred. It will not work without the basket in place. The on/off button is also the reverse button. This is VERY important. Not very often but once in a while I have had a paper jam and using the reverse quickly solves the problem and I am able to back the paper out and try again. Human error is the only reason I even had a jam because I tried to feed in more than 12 sheets at one time.

As mentioned earlier, there is a 12 sheet maximum capacity for shredding. I do not recommend going over this amount. I know it is tempting but this is when a little self control comes in handy.

It buzzes through staples and paper clips with no problem. This is such a nice feature as a person can spend considerable time making sure all paper clips and staples are removed. I wouldn't consider a shredder unless it has this feature.

The only problem I have found with this shredder was it did not come pre-assembled in the box. I am not much into assembling and so I wasn't looking forward to figuring it out. Luckily my husband came by my work that day and put it together for me (I am not usually that dependent.) I later found the instructions at the back of the users manual.

I recommend this shredder for any small office and it is certainly more than adequate for home use. It requires no maintenance, fits easily under my desk and never jams unless I feed in more than 12 sheets of paper.