# How to burn up a lot of thick paper?



## meanwhile (Dec 13, 2007)

I need to burn up a lot of paper. It has to be burnt and cannot be recycled. (It is old personal paper and very old outdated bank statements from deceased family and I got stuck with it.) I have about twelve large size boxes full. Boxes about the size of a large brown paper grocery bag. 

If I pour gas on the boxes, will that help or only be dangerous?

Would pouring diesel fuel on the paper and giving it time to soak in help?

I am worried that if I just set the boxes in the burn pile, then only the top layer of paper will burn and the rest just set there and blow away later. 

Any suggestions? Thank you.


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## arabian knight (Dec 19, 2005)

How about a shredder? They are very inexpensive. I have been doing that for the last few nights with old bank statements etc. Shredders work great. Burn great after that also. LOL


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## po boy (Jul 12, 2010)

You would have to have a very large shredder to handle this much in a reasonable time. I have a large floor commercial floor model and would not attempt to shred that much. It might be efficient if you shred only the personal identity information. Just cut that portion out to shred can an the rest. It would be nice if you knew someone with an incinerator.

Look in the yellow pages for companies that shred doc.


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## mekasmom (Jan 19, 2010)

If the people are deceased, then is identity theft still a hazard? Personally, I would just throw it away.


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## DaleK (Sep 23, 2004)

Set the boxes up on some large branches or wood blocks and burn them from the bottom. Put some wire screen or a chunk of chain link fence or something over the top, or more branches and leaves and what not. Burning from below is the most important part. The more you can loosen the papers up the better too.


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## Pony (Jan 6, 2003)

Yeah, what DaleK said.


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## Old Vet (Oct 15, 2006)

It is better if you wad it up before burning. I know it will take some time but it will burn all the way. I had to do this with old records to be sure it all burned. If you dont do this there will be pieces that will not be burned.


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## kimmom2five (Apr 19, 2009)

There are professional shredding services. They come to your home or wherever and you watch them shred it then they haul it away. I had a friend use one for all her husband's counseling records and he was a paper pack rat too. I believe the price was very reasonable.


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## Pony (Jan 6, 2003)

Old Vet said:


> It is better if you wad it up before burning. I know it will take some time but it will burn all the way. I had to do this with old records to be sure it all burned. If you don't do this there will be pieces that will not be burned.


Yeah, but you could rake up the stuff that wasn't burned and re-burn it. Would take less time than balling up all that paper.

Or, the OP could burn it a box at a time...


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## Pony (Jan 6, 2003)

kimmom2five said:


> There are professional shredding services. They come to your home or wherever and you watch them shred it then they haul it away. I had a friend use one for all her husband's counseling records and he was a paper pack rat too. I believe the price was very reasonable.


When you work as a counselor/therapist, you HAVE to save all those files. If you don't, you can get in a boatload of trouble.

I'm _still_ hauling around files from when I was in private practice.


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## Appalachia (Jul 11, 2012)

Why waste the carbon?
Pick out the sensitive pages/portions of pages and compost it.


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## Wolfy-hound (May 5, 2013)

Make certain you put some sort of screening over it so the paper doesn't float up and become a hazard to start a fire elsewhere.

I forgot that last time I was burning stacks of paper. Can get scary. I'd add some oil and let it soak through overnight at least. I poured lamp oil on a big stack and set it in a cardboard box outside and it soaked through really nicely.


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## bassmaster17327 (Apr 6, 2011)

Why couldn't you compost it or eve just bury it? I have burned stacks of magazines before and it was a pain


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## luvrulz (Feb 3, 2005)

Use a professional shredder....clean and easy peasy.


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## MichaelZ (May 21, 2013)

If you have kids, have them take the papers a few at a time, crumple into balls and stuff into big plastic trash bags - these will burn up in a flash. This is what I do with my office paper. If you don't have kids, you will need to get crumpling yourself!

You are right though, if the paper is not spread out, it will not burn. Kind of like flour. Try to light up a whole bag in the bag and you get no where. Disperse a whole bag finely in the air and it is explosive. Surface area is the key.


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## pamda (Oct 14, 2004)

I am using huge amounts of shredded paper from my dads stuff and my sisters in-laws. Sister has a shredder that makes confetti. It has gone in the coop and the garden. Just shred as much as you can when you can. Burning it could be a messy thing.


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## Shawn (Apr 2, 2008)

Check with your local bank. My mom's has 1 or 2 days a year where they bring in the big professional shredding truck and will turn it into confetti.


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## jwal10 (Jun 5, 2010)

I just did 8 big garbage bags today, old bank papers and old checks and stuff. Good hot fire in the burn barrel and throw 3-4 pages in at a time. Took 20 minutes. I usually just shred it to use in garden or chicken coop but my little shredder is slow, one page at a time. I had 6 boxes of checks with staples and figured I might as well burn it all. I had some cardboard to make a good fire....James


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## clovis (May 13, 2002)

Start with a good hot fire with a good coal base, and start tossing those papers in as loosely as possible.


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## fishhead (Jul 19, 2006)

I would suggest either a shredding service or you could try to compost them after soaking them thoroughly in ammonia water. 

Just fill a plastic tank with water and ammonia (for the nitrogen) and set the papers in until they get waterlogged. Then take them out and pile loosely.


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## indypartridge (Oct 26, 2004)

mekasmom said:


> If the people are deceased, then is identity theft still a hazard? Personally, I would just throw it away.


That's what we did. DW and I have had to sort through the accumulated papers of her mother, two grandparents and an aunt. Other than quickly thumbing through that stacks to be sure there wasn't anything of potential value (e.g. forgotten stock certificates, bonds), we just pitched boxes and boxes full.


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## am1too (Dec 30, 2009)

arabian knight said:


> How about a shredder? They are very inexpensive. I have been doing that for the last few nights with old bank statements etc. Shredders work great. Burn great after that also. LOL


Then put it in the compost pile.


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## am1too (Dec 30, 2009)

kimmom2five said:


> There are professional shredding services. They come to your home or wherever and you watch them shred it then they haul it away. I had a friend use one for all her husband's counseling records and he was a paper pack rat too. I believe the price was very reasonable.


Some banks offer the service once a month with an onsite document shredding service in the parking lot.


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## CesumPec (May 20, 2011)

I compost all my paper and unless it is packed tight, like a stack of newspapers, it dissapears in a few months. My wife used to board her horse at a barn that used shredded paper as stall bedding. It worked just fine and composted down in the manure pile very fast. 

If you had pigs in a pen, I would guess you could just throw a big bunch of paper in the pen every day to adsorb smells. My neighbor's pig pen certainly got better smelling with an application of carbon in the form of wood chips. If an identity thief wants to wade into the boar's pen and try to extract manure and mud covered paper, have fun with that.


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## Gray Wolf (Jan 25, 2013)

I just did this. I put the boxes one by one in an old portable firepit we have that is all rusted out but still has the screen. I lit the fire with a propane weed burner for a few minutes and then came back every few hours to stir and flame with the weed burner for a few minutes. I could burn about two boxes a day and was left with just a few inches of ash after six boxes. The trick was to stir them often and they seemed to smoulder along just fine with no visible flames.


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## secuono (Sep 28, 2011)

We use old bills and statements as kindling in any and all fires, so the smoker, grill, bonfire, fire just for boredom's sake. 
If you can put together several cinder blocks in a large rectangle, single layer, then toss a bunch of paper loosely, set it on fire and add papers as it burns. Too much at once will smother the fire. 

I would never pour gas or any kind on a fire, unless you don't need your face or w/e else might be near by to catch fire...Also, open air fires are illegal after X time in some States, so don't make a big pile if it's illegal, a neighbor is bound to call the cops. =/


Thinking some more about it, I would probably dig a long hole, fill it with papers, add manure of some animal and cap it with dirt and grass seed. It'll be gone in no time w/o all the burning and watching.


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## meanwhile (Dec 13, 2007)

Thank you everyone. After more sorting, we have more boxes now. Am trying to find shredder service. Thanks.


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## AR Transplant (Mar 20, 2004)

several years ago my dh agreed to burn his company's old business files on our property. It took 3-4 people a good three days to do it. They would have saved so much money had they had it professionally shredded.


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## Jennifer L. (May 10, 2002)

Well, it's not burning, but I put all of my uncle's financial papers (he was 90 when he died and never threw any financial statement out) in the free stall barn and let the cows take care of them. This was in the summer when the cows were in and out and I might only clean it every week or even less depending on how much they were in there. When I cleaned the barn out next the papers had completely disappeared. I get rid of most of my sensitive stuff this way, but had not done it in large amounts like this. Has to be a wet barn, though. Can't just mix it with dry manure and expect to get it to disappear without real composting. The cows just make it into manure paper machÃ©.


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## kimmom2five (Apr 19, 2009)

Pony said:


> When you work as a counselor/therapist, you HAVE to save all those files. If you don't, you can get in a boatload of trouble.
> 
> I'm _still_ hauling around files from when I was in private practice.


Well since he still has his thesis on computer punch card and had every paper since, I'm sure he knew what he didn't have to keep since he approved her getting it all shredded.


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## greg273 (Aug 5, 2003)

Got a burn barrel? Put some in loosely, light it, come back later and put more in . Repeat. You may want to have a few beers while you do this.


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## OnlyMe (Oct 10, 2010)

We used a national Office supply store who offers a shredding service. They charge by the pound and I had a coupon to get the first 5 lbs free. It was worth the ride and the expense to get it out of the garage. I have another few boxes to go and will do the same.


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## CathyGo (Apr 26, 2013)

Take a hand garden cultivator with nice sharp tines to the stacks and they should burn clean through.


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## ronron (Feb 4, 2009)

I end up wit a lot of files to dispose of every year our bank has a free shred day a couple of time a year this works.... In the past my husband would dig a deep hole in the bottom of our fall, winter, spring pond fill it with the papers and cover it over, he would just remember where he buried the last stuff and pick new place the next year...


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