My project this week was to take a big pile of paper and convert it to this:

I didn’t expect this huge of a bag, but apparently a (not even) 1 foot stack ballooned to this size! Fortunately the city of Toronto will recycle it for free provided the shredded paper is in its own clear plastic bag.

I bought a cheapy shredder ($20) to do the work and by the time it got through my stack, it started squealing and squeaking. Apparently the solution is to oil the shredder because it dries out from paper particles. I didn’t want to run out to the store to buy some shredder oil so I looked up some other suggestions. One was to use vegetable oil, which while cheap, seemed like a bad idea because vegetable oil starts smelling after awhile.

The other suggestion was to use mineral oil – I have no idea what that is, but apparently baby oil (which I have) is a form of mineral oil. I sprinkled a generous amount of baby oil on a couple pieces of paper and shredded them. Sounds like a good plan in theory, and while my shredder still works; it stills squeaks. The only benefit I found is that instead of a dry paper smell, it smells like a baby now.

Posted by Kevin in Blogs Tags: homeoffice