Following a clear out, I have 3 carrier bags full of old papers I no longer want to keep filed.

Are there any other public/commercial options to dispose of them 'securely' (shredding etc.)

Burn them in your fire pit.

Tom

You are not the first to be confronted with this situation:
https://www.englishforum.ch/business...shredding.html

I asked the local entsorgungspark about this and they said to bring them and put them in the Sperrgut container which gets incinerated. Costs 7chf up to 12kg,then pro rata.

Rip them up into smaller pieces and put them in a zurisack and they also get incinerated.

Buy a shredder

At a minimum you need to buy a cross-cut machine. Since most of the home/office models will only take 8-10 sheets at a time, it will not be a fast process.

You could also use a service, this one has drop-off points in several cities.

https://www.reisswolf.ch/en/types-of...hive-clearing/

I find it random that people don’t have one anyway.... I’m always putting stuff through my shredder

We have two.
A small one that sits over a bin and which sees almost daily use and a more robust cross cut one.

We have an incinerator bin with lid - and we burn them.

Just toss tham in with the other paper.

Tom

At our déchetterie the bin for paper is huge. It must take tonnes of waste paper. Adding 3 carrier bags of once sensitive private stuff to that mass of paper is hardly going to put you at risk. Even in the unlikely event someone was targeting you specifically I can’t see it being likely they would be able to dumpster dive your stuff.

We do have a small 10 sheet home shredder that we do use for more current private/sensitive stuff. We add the remains to the compost. Ironically the déchetterie doesn’t want it because it tends to blow around easily making the déchetterie untidy.

Does anyone know what happens to the waste paper after it leaves the déchetterie?

Here, they burn it, which is why you can also throw in cardboard.

Tom

I have a shredder at work . Maybe you have some ne too . It’s just a question of asking

It is not even that expensive.Besides this is a thing that one will use for a long time.

OH gave me one for Christmas a few years ago, and it was the only present he gave me. I threatened to shred his head.

I take it he went a bit too far with his pragmatism.

(Btw, I would have done the same lol. Or give him a set of floral mugs as the next Christmas gift)

I shredded 35 liters worth of paper and took it to our Recyclinghof. They wanted it separate from the regular paper in the bin because it gummed up their machine. This was a few years ago. Anyway, if it’s personal stuff I shred it and throw it in my compost bin. It’s usually not a lot.

shredded paper, as long as small quantities at a time, are indeed great in composter.

My composter has a formula for substrate, shredded paper and compost.