The Guardian:

With much whirring and the occasional swearword as the little metal teeth jam on a staple, Britain is becoming a nation of security-obsessed shredders. Supermarket sales reveal that hundreds of thousands of homes are adopting a routine more associated with the secret service, by turning receipts and other data into illegible paper worms.

Shredders, this year’s most popular domestic accessory, are now outselling toasters at the UK supermarket giant Tesco. Sales have topped 10,000 a month since Christmas and registered a 25 per cent increase in the last six months.

The trend has been mirrored at other supermarkets and particularly DIY stores, where stacks of shredders are increasingly used as “till bait” to attract impulse buyers. The rush has been prompted by drastic price reductions - one cheap machine on the market costs GBP13, which is sometimes further discounted - and nerves over stories of credit card fraud and identity theft.

“People now know there is a growing problem of criminals rummaging through rubbish bins,” said Matthew Finch, electrical buyer for Tesco. “Their prey is personal documents such as bank statements or receipts.” The problem has been made worse by the persistence of some shops and restaurants in printing an entire credit card number on paperwork, rather than using asterisks or just the last four digits. Criminals extracting and copying the details made an estimated GBP 1.3 bn out of card fraud in Britain last year. The drive for shredders may also be motivated by an apparent desire to give the most mundane home something of the romantic air of a doomed regime destroying incriminating paperwork as invaders storm in.

Reviews of shredders on Internet shopping websites have a consistent tone of excitement at the process of feeding domestic trivia into the munching slot. The other beneficiaries

of the new shredding lifestyle are guinea pigs and other pet rodents which enjoy the bundles of strips as bedding, and occasionally complete the process of destruction by eating it as well.