Recompute

Put it in a pothole.Conigliaro Industries Inc. of Framingham, Massachusetts, wants your mixed plastics...including computers. A mixture made from ground-up computer plastic makes a great pothole filler: Boston's Best Patch. Move over, asphalt!

Sit on it. Computer chips and circuit boards are the modern "fossils" in Fossil Faux Furniture. Designer Marcia Stuermer suspends the components in resin and places them in chairs, desks, tables and screens.

Get some...money back. Reclamation specialists like Monmouth Wire & Computer Recycling in Tinton Falls, New Jersey will buy your old machines and run them through a recycling process. It's the ultimate reboot.

This article was originally published in the July 2000 print edition of Entrepreneur with the headline: Recompute.