The dirty little secret behind the keyboard-tapping, button-mashing, cell phone-yapping, Valley lifestyle? Electronics manufacturing and waste are incredibly toxic. The cycle of planned obsolescence may drive profit growth. It also drives continuing shipments of used and broken electronics to places like Guiyu, China, where workers like the one pictured here make pennies picking over silica wafers for precious metals, while drining water polluted by lead and other industrial contaminants. Amidst all the cleantech hype that venture capitalists and entrepreneurs will save the world with technology, companies like Apple and Microsoft are still busy polluting it with old iPods and Xboxes. Microsoft is the second-worst polluter amongst large electronics manufacturers, according to Greenpeace. And while Apple's charming fakir Steve Jobs has made a public commitment to improving the company's environmental record, it lags behind less "innovative" rivals Dell, HP and Sony. But hey, can you believe the gas mileage you can get in a plug-in hybrid?(Photo from Getty Images)

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