Many successful inventions have begun from unrelated incidents. For instance:
- Velcro (1950s): The idea for Velcro came about when George De Mestral returned from a walk covered in tiny barbs from a cocklebur plant. Under close observation, he noticed the burrs were shaped like tiny hooks that snagged on the loops of his clothing. The result was so effective that even NASA was an early adopter of Velcro.
- Coca-Cola (1866): The most famous soft drink, Coca-Cola, was invented by American pharmacist John Pemberton when he was trying to create a morphine-free painkiller. By accident, he combined his mixture with carbonated water, creating a drink that was more pleasing than medicinal. Coke grew from selling just 25 bottles in its first year to almost 2 billion daily.
- Paper Shredder (1935): German citizen Adolf Ehinger needed a quick way to destroy his anti-Nazi leaflets to avoid investigation and punishment. Fortunately for Ehinger, in 1906, Angelo Vitantonio had invented the original hand-crank pasta machine, which inspired Ehinger’s hand-cranked paper shredder.
Evolution of the Shredder
- Pre-1980s: Just as Ehinger needed to destroy his anti-Nazi propaganda, governments were keen to keep information out of enemy hands. In 1979, during the Iranian hostage crisis in Tehran, Embassy workers tried to destroy classified documents in a malfunctioning furnace, then turned to shredders to make the documents unreadable.
- Post-1980s: Outside of government circles, paper shredders were rarely used. However, several significant events increased the need and desire for paper shredding in businesses and homes.
Implementation of the Common Shredder
Paper shredding became much more prominent through the mid to late 1980s due to:
- 1987: Colonel Oliver North testified before Congress that he shredded Iran-Contra documents with a Schleicher cross-cut model shredder, boosting their shredder sales by 20 percent that year.
- 1988: The Supreme Court decision in California v. Greenwood held that the Fourth Amendment does not prohibit the warrantless search and seizure of garbage left for collection outside a home.
- Identity Theft Laws: Over the past few decades, the federal government has implemented laws to protect consumers’ information from being lost, stolen, or abused. Entities that gather, store, and use personally identifiable information are required to protect this information and fully destroy it at the end of its use. Shredding has been one of the best solutions to comply with these federal laws, including the Fair and Accurate Credit Transactions Act, Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act, and the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act.
- Ongoing: The Tennessee Division of Forestry started requiring burn permits for debris piles during specified seasons.
The Future of the Shredder
As more information continues to be created and stored, thieves continue to find ways to obtain it, and private information becomes increasingly valuable. In 1979, Iranians were able to retrieve some of the shredded documents from the Embassy workers and employed skilled carpet weavers to reconstruct the documents. Because of incidents like this and in response to federal requirements, shredders have become more sophisticated to make destroyed paper impossible to read or reconstruct. Shredding companies now provide secure, compliant shredding with industrial shredders, so businesses no longer need to own, operate, repair, or replace their own equipment.
Shredding Your Documents
Richards & Richards in Nashville, TN provides one-time, scheduled, drop-off, or residential shredding that is compliant with all federal and state privacy laws. We provide a Certificate of Destruction with every shredding job and recycle 100% of the shredded material. To have your private information securely destroyed, give us a call at 615-242-9600 or complete the form on this page.
