I am a bit obsessive when it comes to shredding personal documents, everything that has any personal details what so ever gets shredded before it is put out for recycling. So when my last shredder broke getting a replacement was quite high on my list of priorities. After looking around to see what was on offer I finally opted for the Ryman MC21 Cross Cut Shredder.

The shredder is advertised as having the following features;

- Shreds paper securely with cross cut to 4 x 45mm (DIN3)
- 10 sheet capacity
- Child safety lock
- Dedicated slot for CD/DVD shredding
- Shreds credit cards
- Accepts staples
- 21 Litre mesh bin
- Auto start and reverse functions
- Suitable for home office use

It had everything I needed, in particular I liked the fact that it has a 10 sheet capacity and a large 21 litre bin, at £37.99 it seemed like a good buy. I was quite surprised how heavy the shredder was, it is quite heavy much heavier than the one I was replacing.

The shredder was well packed using a mixture of plastic bags and moulded cardboard so it was well protected. Inside there was an instruction book inside the box which gives a safety guide, installation and operation guide.

The shredder itself comes in three parts
- Large mesh bin (to collect shredded paper)
- Small black plastic container (slots onto inside of mesh bin to collect shredded CD/DVD & credit cards)
- Shredding unit
Assembly is really straight forward, slot the small plastic container in place, fit shredding unit on top of mesh bin and you are ready to go.

The shredding unit has three switches
- Auto
- Off
- Reverse

Thu unit has two separate slots, the large slot for paper and a small slot for CD's/DVD's and credit cards. Both of these slots are operated by the same three way switch marked Auto, Off & Reverse. To begin shredding simply slide the switch to Auto and feed paper (or CD etc) into relevant slot. Should you get a blockage slide the switch to reverse, this makes the shredding rollers run in reverse and frees excess paper from the rollers.

When it came to using the shredder I was a little disappointed and did toy with the idea of taking it back to the shop. The shredder is really really loud, far louder than any other shredder I have come across, I know no shredder is going to be quiet but the noise this one makes is a bit extreme. Another reason for my disappointment was that the box states that it has a 10 sheet shredding capacity, the supporting documentation backs up this claim saying the unit can shred 10 x A4 sheets of 80gsm paper. This is an exaggeration I have found that anything over 5 or 6 sheets is too much for the shredder to handle, the motor slows right down to a virtual stop if you try and shred more than this. So long as you stick to around 5 sheets a time the shredder works fine (loud but shreds ok). The shredder cuts the paper into nice small pieces, approximately 4cm x 3.0cm pieces so you can be sure that any documents shredded using this machine have been well and truly destroyed. My final gripe being that it does not actually shred CD's. credit cards etc. it merely cuts them into 3 cm long strips. This means a credit card is only cut into four pieces which anyone who was really intend on stealing your card details could easily piece back together to obtain card information. I did however in the end decide to keep the product and live with the noise and reduced capacity.

On the positive side I find the separate storage container for the shredded (or more accurately rather large strips) CD's etc a really good idea. I recycle all my shredded paper so having the separate container means no contamination. The only problem I do have with this container is that it is loose, I remember to empty it after I have shredded any discs but when the paper bin is full I do tend to forget the container is there and end up nearly throwing it out with the shredded paper. I put this down to my forgetfulness and not a fault with the product. After hearing the noise shredding the paper made I expected the noise to be absolutely horrendous when shredding discs etc., I was pleasantly surprised as the noise level was about the same as for paper, certainly no worse.

All in all I would say this is a mediocre product, it is by no means one of the best available in the price range. I will continue to use the product as I have already bought it but I would definitely not recommend it to others.