Paper shredder that avoids wasting time.
It could be out of date, but I saw a paper shredder and you put the paper in the shredder some sheets, but less than a handful, at a time. Those Manhattan people are paying $100/hr or more to have executives shred things. This is a paper shredder that looks like a filing cabinet. It blends in, and it's got a lot of dental-motif lasers in it.
If say, 20-40 million Mangers and executives in the US, and 250 million globally use a paper shredder an hour a month, and they are earning the equivalent of $50-100/hr then 3 billion person hours of shredding is going on globally, at a productivity cost of 150-300 billion dollars of inefficient time each year. If it is 90% administrative assistants doing the shredding that is still a productivty effect of $15-30 billion when you free up the high-earner's labor.
The experience! You dump a few hundred to a few thousand pages into the filing cabinet shredder's ergonomic-height top drawer. You close the drawer. The camera looks around to make sure it is actually closed. It says, Lasering now, and dental lasers, the kind that comminute (microchop) things like teeth without making heat chop the stuff to 2 mm square pieces in the form factor cabinet that is actually a paper shredder.
The bottom two drawers are where the microcomminutions (particles) fall into after laser shredding.
Ergonomics people study the laser comminuting, fits-right-in-to-the-office look shredding cabinet, and sizes it to be full-drawer pull-out length efficacious. This is large enough to contain all the physical paper that crosses a $100K or greater earning's person's desk in a year. Maybe its a mammoth amount, 365-5000 pages (2020 managers and executives) all at once. That's ok, The cabinet has been sized so it is a once a year 3 minute event. The company has saved $600 of manager+executive time per user.
The cost? Now that it is public domain it can head straight to alibaba, where it costs as much as 50-100 ten cent dental lasers ($total:10) spaced 3 cm apart; at an array at the top and sides of the file cabinet's top drawer. Components also include an actual 3 drawer filing cabinet($10), a muffin fan and a motor(20 cents). (a little like a PC keeping cool). a 2 cent CPU chip, and 3 high intensity acoustic transducers (total $12) that can vibrate all the microparticles to the sides and out the holes as the lasers comminute. Two 90 cent cameras (1.80) and a $50 power supply. Together, rounded up, that is $84.25 cents.
A cheaper version is $49.25
It also features two 90 cent cameras, one for inside the shredder (verifying an absence of anything with a pulse), and one to look around at the room to verify that everyone's eyes were at a physics-impossible room angle to experience harm. That way if there were an earthquake, and it was laying on its side with the drawer popped open eveyones vision would be preserved. And of course it has other safeties which would turn off the power anyway.
Also, the lasers instead of being little collimated ======= lines, could be focalized, that is they could focus on the paper with on-chip optics[link]. If they focus on the paper, anything a few CM beyond the paper surface receives a wide blur of light that is harmless.
So, many an office saves money and productivity over their current paper shredder. The high earners contribute more to their companies with the time bonus, and, if administrative assistants are actually doing all the shredding it is a little easier and funner than anything involving handfeeding.
Important fun question: What if I put my lunch in it? I favor the thing just work, and believe that anything placed in it be laser comminuted to 2mm pieces. So, if you interrupted it, which might be hard, you would get like a pile of crumbs that was huge, the volume of your lunch. Interesting physics question: what is the very thinnest laser cut that would actually be considered comminuting paper?
Boring essential question: What about the paperclips? How about the spontaneous person that tosses in a metal flash drive, or a water soaked bouquet from someone they do not admire? Answer: dental lasers can drill/comminute metal fillings. I do not know if there is a timing effect, but the shred cycle could just be 3 seconds longer.-- beanangel, Dec 27 2020 Atomic demolition munition https://en.wikipedi...demolition_munitionExcellent effectiveness where document destruction is required. [8th of 7, Dec 28 2020] Laser paper shredders Might be WKTE in the movies or something. The real novelty here is that if you have 20 managers and 5 executives you are saving $1500 a month, $18,000 a year or more with an appliance at big markup that could be just $99.00-- beanangel, Dec 27 2020 Burn it.
Burn it all.
Get a flamethrower.
Do it NOW.-- 8th of 7, Dec 27 2020 //Those Manhattan people are paying $100/hr or more to have executives shred things.// - no they’re not-- hippo, Dec 27 2020 Sometimes they shred stuff on their own time though, often just before the Feds show up ...-- 8th of 7, Dec 27 2020 True - in that case, it's $100/hr well spent-- hippo, Dec 27 2020 This problem has been addressed many different ways. They include: assistants, high capacity shredders, shredder bins, and outsourced disposal. Also you vastly overestimate the amount of time it would take if executives actually did that. Also executives make much more than that. Also you underestimate the cost of the device. Of course it would cause massive fires, so that part is well and good. But you fail to even attempt to make the most of that. Where's the discussion of air flow, combustion mechanics and alternative methods? Where's the fuel-air mixture capable of sending hardened metal teeth in every direction at high rates of speed?
And optics inside a shredder are a really bad idea.
In fact I'm nominating this for rotten idea of the year. Sorry, Bean-- Voice, Dec 27 2020 I once worked with a manager who stored old documents in boxes with her name on them as a way to "reserve" un-claimed office space. So that's another approach: instead of shredding, put the papers in a box and send the box to a rival department in the manner of a frontier post.-- sninctown, Dec 27 2020 In an (allegedly) open-plan office, that can be used to build a cubicle-like personal space ...
Also <link> for a good way of incinerating embarrassing paperwork.-- 8th of 7, Dec 27 2020 random, halfbakery