Do you tear up your mail?
By mlhuff12
@mlhuff12 (797)
United States
February 21, 2008 6:18pm CST
Do you tear up your mail before you throw it away? I have never done this. But then I started dating a guy and he would tear off where his address would be and tear it up in little pieces or shred it. I thought this was very strange. I guess something happened to a member in his family. Something fell out of the garbage truck and it had the person's mailing address on it. Later that person got fined for littering...I started tearing my mail up too. But after a while I got so tired of doing it. So now I just tear up important information like account numbers to banks or credit cards.
3 people like this
17 responses
@sassygirlanne007 (4517)
• United States
22 Feb 08
my family sheds all the mail that is just paper and we reuse it in our garden, it works very well.
2 people like this
@sassygirlanne007 (4517)
• United States
22 Feb 08
We shred it and spread it out around the plants, it helps absorb the water. It also is good to replace using straw in the garden.
1 person likes this
@spectrum42 (393)
• United States
22 Feb 08
What a great idea - so much better than paying to have it hauled away with the trash.
1 person likes this
@CherylsPearls (1269)
• United States
22 Feb 08
I shred everything with my name on it. Identity thieves get loads of information from your garbage. And really, you don't know where your garbage will end up. So, to be on the safe side, I shred anything with my name, address, etc. on it. Shredders aren't expensive anymore and it's a good investment!
1 person likes this
@Phaedra_Scythe (3325)
•
22 Feb 08
I do the exact same thing, or shred it, with everything with my name and address on it. It's probably paranoiac overkill, but I feel better for doing it!
1 person likes this
@Elixiress (3878)
•
25 May 08
We have a paper shred it so we shred out mail rather than ripping it up.
@devilsangel (1817)
• United States
22 Feb 08
I tend to shred my mail... not because I'm afraid to get finned for littering but because I don't want others having personal information on me. I shred all my bank, credit card, hospital and regular bills. I even shred the junk mail I get just in case it has something on there that someone can use to try and steal information on me.
1 person likes this
@CanadaGal (4304)
• Canada
22 Feb 08
I don't tear up all mail, but I did purchase a shredder a few years ago for things like bank statements and bills. I will also shred credit card applications that come in my name. There's no way I want someone trying to steal my identity that way.. it's all too easy.
1 person likes this
@jennysp8 (855)
• United States
22 Feb 08
I do that now but I never used to. I used to think it was very strange. But my mothers neighbor/friend got fined one day for littering her junk mail down the street.
Well, of course she didn't do it but all she could think of was her junk mail was in her garbage so it must have came from that. Many times my mother has been driving behind a garbage truck and seen bags or miscl. papers/garbage fly out and no one stops to do anything about it. So not only is there the danger of indenity theft but about a $350 fine for littering - even though you were innocent.
1 person likes this
@cupid74 (11388)
• Pakistan
22 Feb 08
Hi dear
sure i am used to of tearing off my important dicuments and other mails
its habit i got developed while working in office, their are some information which we cant forward to our production departments.
However this habit saves u from lot of head ache, other than littering, ur info and other details like bank account, mailing address, credit card number, if goes to wring hand then it can create problem, like fraud, mis use or any thing
so i would repeat my old phrae
"prevention is better than cure"
take care
@gemini_rose (16264)
•
22 Feb 08
We also tear off any addresses, or any personal details and make sure that they are destroyed, its not so much being fined that I worry about but identity fraud or anyone using information they find on our rubbish. So I make sure that it is all destroyed.
1 person likes this
@freddycat (15)
• United States
22 Feb 08
absolutley yes!! Shred everything with any personal info.
1 person likes this
@queenofarms (1659)
• United States
22 Feb 08
I tear up anything with my bank acct., social security,credit card#s on it. Things with just my address I don't worry to much about that.
1 person likes this
@sunshinelady (7609)
• United States
22 Feb 08
My Mom started me doing this a long time ago. She always has taken a scissors and cut the address and cut it into little bitty pieces. Now she has a shredding machine and every bit of mail she gets put threw that. I do the same thing. In this day and age a person can not be to careful.
@ersmommy1 (12588)
• United States
23 Feb 08
I used to tear it up. That was too time consuming. So I took a different tack. We bought two shredders. We have a small one in our kitchen. And we bought a larger one for the office downstairs. The hard part is when the smaller one gets jammed. It is rough to clean it out.
