Ditch Your Shredder and Turn Your Sensitive Documents into a DIY Firelog

I hate shredding papers. In fact, to borrow a quote from Erma Bombeck, “My second favorite household chore is ironing shredding. My first being hitting my head on the top bunk bed until I faint.”

I know, I know, shredding is important, if not imperative. But before you start reminding me of the dangers of not disposing of sensitive documents correctly, rest assured, I do shred. But that doesn’t mean I have to like it.

When I saw this DIY idea online, I wanted to serve notice to my shredder: your days are numbered. Nothing would delight me more than to grab a big whopping stack of credit card applications, turn them into a firelog, and kick back my heels with a skewer and a bag of marshmallows.

Here’s how to do it, courtesy of The Simple Dollar:

Use all of your documents as the starting fuel for a large bonfire. However, it’s not a great idea to just take all of your documents and just burn them. Instead, make a giant burnable cube out of them.

One better way to do that is to rip the documents into smaller pieces and fill up a tub about halfway with the documents. Then, add water to the documents until the bin is mostly full. Let it sit for twelve hours or so, then drain off as much water as you can (and squeeze out even more water). You’ll be left with a giant ball of mushy pulp. Put this ball somewhere dry for a few weeks and you’ll have a very large chunk of very flammable paper that will burn quite well. (If you want to get it really dry, stick the mostly-dry chunk in your oven at about 250 F for a while, which will cause the water to evaporate out of it while leaving the dry paper behind.) This is wonderful firestarter for a large bonfire.

Give it a try and let us know if this saves you some time and if you are like me, some head banging. And while you are at it, pass me a hot dog for my skewer.

(photo credit: Mr. Theklan)