Broken

I had an old laptop that I've been meaning to recycle because it's broken. Yesterday I took out the hard drive to destroy it, because apparently that's what you're supposed to do if there's been confidential info on it. Then, inspired by Aran's photo of the inside of a camera, I decided to take the laptop apart to see its innards. I had a lot of fun figuring out how to actually take it apart, then I was fascinated to get right down to motherboard. I've always been intrigued by motherboards - imagine having the kind of brain that can put something like them together - and now I have one that I can inspect and use for macros. Very few pieces of the laptop are headed to the recycle depot.
I do feel a certain amount of guilt contributing to electronic waste, almost like that's my way of littering. These images of the waste are horrifying, and I've seen programs about the impacts of the largest e-dump in the world. We live in such a throwaway society and often upgrade to the newest device without a second thought. Sometimes I wonder about all this so-called "progress".