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Ativa V180S Shredder
About two years ago our office manager purchased this shredder for our daily use. It has been well worth the expense. I work in non-profit sector working on behalf of senior citizens in our state and there are papers that have to be shredded daily that have personal identifying information on them. The manufacturer's price today is about $700 dollars but our manager purchased the model for about $625 dollars. There are five of us in our division and this machine is consistently being used by someone.
This model is pretty quiet; it replaced an older, noisier model. The feature that most of us like the best it the reverse button that will allow each one of us to try to unjam the shredder and send paper through easier. This usually happens when we are in a hurry and try to stuff too much paper into the unit. Since it is used daily, the indicator light is another important feature. If the light is green we are good to go, if it is red the shredder needs emptied and a new bag put in. The unit came with a roll of shredder bags, and for a short time we purchased actual shredder bags. However, these are expensive compared to regular trash bags. So we now purchase thinner and cheaper kitchen sized trash bags to use with our shredder.
Although the operations manual states that this model will cut through staples and paper clips, which are routinely used in most offices, we remove them before we place any paper into the shredder. Our previous shredder would not handle these items well and we just don't take any chances. The wider plate on the front of this model makes it easier to get more sized papers into the unit. It will accommodate the legal sized forms and this is very convenient for us.
The shredder came with a two year warranty on the parts and labor and a lifetime one on the blades that shred everything. Another great feature is the model automatically stops shredding once the bag is filled. This is a time saver and a good reminder to change the bag. In our office we have even been able to recycle the shredding, as a local dog breeder picks them up to use on the bottom of his kennels. No office, at least one as busy as ours, with sensitive information can afford not to have a shredder and this Ativa model really works well for any paper.