Fellowes PS-60: Worm bin bedding machine
Worm bin
experiment 2011 is
gearing up. Our new shredder came in the mail yesterday --- the
Fellows PS-60. As usual, I over-researched the decision, but was
glad I did. Most of the shredders on the market today are
cross-cut or confetti shredders, made to turn your paper into pieces
too small for your nosy neighbors to read. However, the whole
point of a shredder for me is to get long strips that won't mat down
quickly in the worm bin, so I kept hunting until I found what's called
a "strip-cut" model. Mark talked me into choosing a shredder in
the $100 price range since he figures the ones half that price will
break down much faster.
I pulled her out of the
box, sorted my paper into glossy and unglossy, and let her rip.
Junk mail is suddenly a joy! The Fellows shredder will take
twelve sheets of normal paper at a time, which means I could feed
unopened envelopes, big hanks of catalogs, and even the thin cardboard
that tea bags come in through with no trouble. Flattened toilet
paper center rolls were too much for her, but you can just turn the
switch to reverse if you overdo it and your paper will come right back
out.
Meanwhile, I've talked
it over with my non-profit, and they're on board for
being the public face of asking the local school for their food
scraps. I hope that with a non-profit behind me, I won't look
quite so much like a kook. My letter to the principal is going in
the mail this week. Wish me luck!
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About us: Anna Hess and Mark Hamilton spent over a decade living self-sufficiently in the mountains of Virginia before moving north to start over from scratch in the foothills of Ohio. They've experimented with permaculture, no-till gardening, trailersteading, home-based microbusinesses and much more, writing about their adventures in both blogs and books.
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I haven't actually sat down and counted how many sheets I was running through at a time, but I did send entire pieces of junk mail through without opening the envelopes. The other thing that bogged this guy down was a fake credit card (plastic, but lighter than normal credit cards) inside one of those unopened envelopes. That was the only time that it got bogged down enough that I couldn't just reverse the offending article back out. I had to unplug it, cut the parts that had been shredded off, replug it, and then reverse it out, but even that wasn't worthy of raising blood pressure.
I'm always glad to hear people say, "That sounds cool, but I'll wait until my current model breaks before I try it." Perfect!