Fellowes P-45C: Shredding Paper - and Patience

Intro
Newspapers pile up pretty quickly and it seemed a shame not to use them for the garden. However, short of tearing or cutting them by hand, the only other option was to buy a shredder. The first one I bought didn’t last long – it took forever to chew up the sheets and after a while seized up completely. Fortunately, it was still under warranty so I returned it and bought what the salesman assured me was a more heavy duty model, yet appropriate for my needs.

The Facts
According to the manual, presented in seventeen languages) The Fellowes P-45C “Powershredder” can do the following:

Shred paper, credit cards and staples
Confetti-cut 3.9mm x 50mm (approx.15x2 “)
Cut six sheets per pass (fewer sheets for thick, heavy or humid paper)
Cut one card per pass
Do 10-30 paper passes per day; ten card passes per day
Take paper width of 229mm (approx. 9”)
Operate continuously for 5-7 minutes

It features:
waste opening safety flap
sheet capacity gauge
safety lock button
easy empty basket
increased sheet capacity and larger basket size (from earlier model P400C-2)

The accompanying manual gives an overview of the model, with parts clearly labeled and explained, its capabilities listed (as quoted above), the usual safety instructions, how to operate it, troubleshoot and maintain the machine.

My Comments
The chief factors which influenced my purchase were firstly price and secondly what I intended using the machine for. Sure, one can pay big bickies for a state of the art shredder which chews up CDs but for my purposes (and pocket) the PC45-C looked as if it would fit the bill. After all, how much power does one need to cut up newspaper and standard A4 office paper?

At first, the shredder seemed heaps better than my first choice (which would do one sheet at a time) and I had great fun feeding in the voluminous weekend newspaper. However, I found I still had to tear the sheets first, since the opening wouldn’t accept an entire sheet unless folded or torn into strips. So the process started to become arduous, especially when the paper jammed in the metal grinding teeth. Sometimes it wasn’t even a jam – simply the build-up of confetti-cut paper (sliced both vertically and horizontally, as distinct from strip-cut) between the grinders and the safety flap. This meant I had to lift off the top, turn it over and pull out the paper by hand. (Confetti-cut paper is).

At no time did I overload the machine, but it seems that if you don’t push down the contents of the waste basket on a regular basis, build up will happen, resulting in many hours of teeth-gnashing while getting the thing to work again. In fact, last weekend, by the time I’d wasted an hour clearing the jammed bits with a skewer, my patience in shreds, I vowed to take revenge - on Epinions (hence the current review!)

However, this is not a professional office machine designed to grind up volumes ad infinitum, so patience is necessary. The P-45C will do the job – at its own pace, in its own time – but if you have a mountain of newspapers don’t expect to be able to clear it all at once. Also, you have to ensure you feed the paper in carefully, holding it straight up as it’s going in so that movement through the grinders is facilitated.

On the positive side, I like the size and the machine’s neat, compact shape. The special safety lock is an important and essential feature, and even if it is switched to the “Off” position, I always pull out the plug before removing the top and unpicking any shredded matter. The confetti-cut paper, while probably more likely to jam than strip-cut, is fantastic for the compost bin and breaks down a lot more quickly.

Conclusion
I guess if I could afford it, I’d get the most powerful shredder available but in the interim, this one will do the job- at a very basic level. Models designed for the home office are generally geared for smaller volumes of paper so those of us with compost bins and earthworms will just have to learn the art of patience!

If you only need to dispose of small quantities at any one time, this shredder should suffice (and on this basis I’d recommend it), but it does have its limitations.