Granulation

A granulator is a machine that can break down materials into very small fragments.

The easiest way to imagine a granulator is to imagine the inside of your washing machine. Imagine it had thick rotating blades going around the drum, like a fan. Granulator blades are very sharp and cut materials into tiny pieces by scraping them against the edge of the drum. Similar to how your washing machine’s drum has holes to let water in and out, granulators also have a screen with holes in it. This screen stops fragments from exiting the granulator until they are small enough to get through the holes.

Industrial shredders work by rotating sets of blades working against each other, ripping paper into small pieces as it passes through the blades. A granulator works slightly differently.

Imagine your washing machine, with holes all around the drum to let water in and out. A granulator is sort of like this, but with an extremely sharp blade that rotates against the drum, scraping paperwork against the metal edges. This process does take longer than a typical shredder would, but it results in a much smaller particle size - around 2mm x 2mm. The holes in the drum work like a shredder screen, only allowing materials to pass through the holes once they are small enough. While granulators aren’t technically shredders, they are essentially the most secure “shredders” available in terms of particle size.

Granulation is typically only needed by organisations that process Top Secret or other classified government documents that pertain to national security. For almost everything else, standard shredding services are sufficient.

Granulation is a very slow process - around 50x slower than a standard shredding service would take. We typically recommend reserving a full day for our granulation services to allow sufficient time for all of your materials to be destroyed.

For on-site granulation, we will drive to your premises in our bespoke on-site granulation vehicle and destroy the materials outside your premises. Your representatives are very welcome to witness the granulation, but please note that granulation takes a very long time. We recommend reserving a full day for granulation services to ensure all of your materials are destroyed.

You can witness the destruction of your materials when choosing an on-site service option. Off-site services occur at our high-security destruction facilities, which are not open to the public for security and safety purposes.

Our shredding and destruction services are approved for UK government use. Our customers include defence agencies, police forces, central and local government, embassies, the armed forces, NHS trusts, and many other public sector organisations. We also service private businesses, charities, NGOs, small businesses, sole traders, and residential customers. No job is too big or too small, and we treat all customers the same.

We perform our services in line with EN 15713 standards (the European Standard) rather than DIN 66399 (the German Standard). This is because EN 15713 covers all aspects of shredding service security, including shred size, whereas DIN only covers shred size. You can find more information about the differences between DIN 66399 and EN 15713 in our help guide.