More and more Americans are turning to the devices as a form of protection against thieves who comb the nation's trash for lucrative personal information. More and more Americans are turning to the devices as a form of protection against thieves who comb the nation's trash for lucrative personal information. An estimated 9 million shredders were sold in the United States last year, said Terri Considine, product manager for Fellowes, an Itasca, Ill.-based shredder maker.
People are scared.
That's what it is,'' said David Joachim, marketing director for Royal Consumer Business Products, which sold nearly 3 million shredders last year. You've got a growing sense of paranoia which isn't unrealistic,'' said Todd Henreckson, director of Addison, Ill.-based General Binding Corp.'s shredding division. General Binding recommends ATM receipts, pay stubs, pre-approved credit card applications, report cards, checks, magazine address labels, used airline tickets and anything with a signature. Shredders have been around since 1898, when an Austrian artillery officer, worried his ballistics drawings would fall into the wrong hands, built a foot-powered device that chopped up paper, according to General Binding. Since the Cold War, electric shredders have become a way of life for intelligence agencies, the Pentagon and the White House.