[legion]

The part of my dad's estate I want to take care of next is the documents. I swear to you, this man did not throw out a single piece of paper that crossed his path since 1976. We're down to a 4-drawer file cabinent and a dozen file boxes worth of documents (about 200 lbs. worth in all). Some of the stuff we can recycle, but most of the stuff is old tax documents, old pay stubs, old bankruptcy documents, old court documents (my dad liked to sue--and he got sued a few times too), and worst of all: old documents from his two failed businesses. A good portion of the stuff needs to be shredded. We broke a $50 shredder after using it continuously for 18 hours and only put a very small dent in the pile.

Is there any way I can dispose of all of this stuff quickly and cheaply?

I live in the middle of town, so burning is out of the question. I tried to burn a 18" stack of the stuff in my BBQ and it took about 1½ hours. That would mean days of non-stop burning to get through it all.

Commercial shredders start at $500, a little more than I want to spend.

Wood chippers start at $500, a little more than I want to spend.

The only "professional" shredding service in town is Iron Mountain, which just sounds expensive (I'm very familiar with their services).

Any ideas that won't cost me more than $100?