How to Choose Between a Cross Cut and Strip Cut Paper Shredder

Through the years, companies and businesses have started to reduce the amount of paper they use by updating data onto computers and storing the information on hard-drives instead of printing everything out on paper and filing all the documents. This not only saves a ton of space in the office or money on paper, but it also saves the trees.

Preferably, things would be computerized to save the trees and ecosystems, but if the data is contained in a hard copy, fear not, the destroyit shredder will get the job done.

In the U.S., as of 2015, around 15 billion trees are cut down each year. Because of the many uses, there are countless reasons why trees are cut down. Tree removal is at an all-time high and according to research, the world consumption of paper has grown 400 percent in the last 40 years. Now nearly 4 billion trees (35%) of all trees cut around the world are used in paper industries on every continent. Paper is a broad category that includes printing paper, newspapers, toilet paper, etc.

Most of the individual tree is used and not wasted: the wood used to make paper is mostly sawdust and wood chips from lumber mills, not just entire trees that were cut down – most companies try to recycle and reuse where they can.

Lumber companies are another leading industry that needs trees. From 2x4 boards used to build a house, to the wood in a guitar, trees are an extremely important part of our world – dead or alive. Trees are downed to make room for new buildings and developments. This wood is rarely ever wasted and will be used to make furniture, paper, boards and at the very least, firewood. Many companies now make wood pellets or bricks to burn in woodstoves instead of the traditional logs.

Just like anything else, when treated in a factory, wood produces by-products that are used for other nonrelated things. I.e. when wood for paper is heated and turned to pulp, the thick gummy substance is known as cellulose cannot be dissolved. It is then separated from the paper pulp and used in asphalt, paint, chewing gum, detergents, turpentine, deodorants, floor tiles, rayon clothing, sandwich bags, toothpaste, etc. It’s also recycled as food additives. Wood alcohols are used in colognes and solvents.

In fact, latex gloves are a byproduct of trees, coming from Hevea brasiliensis, also known as the rubber tree that is tapped for its rubbery sap. Many household sponges are also made from cellulose wood fibers. Wine corks come from a tree called the cork oak. The original chewing gum was derived from the sap of the sapodilla tree. Car wax is made from a certain type of palm tree native to Brazil. Hair dye and henna tattoos are from the powder of the henna tree. Of course, chocolate also comes from a tree! Garden mulch/tan bark is recycled wood – when pallets get old, they are ground up and dyed to make mulch.

Often, American tree companies collaborate with landowners who have sizable forests on their property. With their permission the company will log out the woods, taking trees of a pre-negotiated size, and will leave the rest of them on the acreage to grow even bigger. This is a beneficial and economical way of foresting trees. While clear-cutting woodland rocks the ecosystem, only cutting a select size of tree leaves the remaining trees to grow and mature. This is healthier for the woods because it stimulates and enables new growth to take place. The younger trees are then allowed more sunlight, water, and nutrients from the soil since the mature trees are gone.

Save the trees by recycling your shredded paper! If sensitive information is on paper and someone does not want it to fall into the wrong hands, they will run the paper through the mbm destroyit shredder. This normally solves the problem, but shredded paper can be reconstructed like a puzzle. The cross-cut shredder likely makes the paper strips harder to match together.