In the past, unwanted compact discs were usually relegated to one of two fates: drink coaster or impromptu Frisbee. But now, thanks to the good folks at Primera Technology, there's a whole new way to dispose of those hated CDs: shred 'em.

With the company's DS360 Disc Shredder, you can take a CD and grind it down to a pile of shiny confetti in less than 10 seconds. It works on the same principle as a paper shredder, but with a much, much sharper set of teeth inside.

"They're solid-iron shredding teeth, as opposed to the pressed-steel ones inside most paper shredders," Primera Vice President of Sales and Marketing Mark Strobel said. "It will grind a CD down to a shiny mixture of plastic and reflective record material. It makes for shiny confetti. But you probably wouldn't want to throw it at anybody -- it's kind of sharp."

Strobel said Primera got the idea for the DS360 from the U.S. Department of Defense, whose massive CD shredders grind discs -- most of which contain highly sensitive information -- down to a fine powder. While his company's shredder isn't nearly as powerful or that huge (it's about the size of a wastepaper basket), it can still really destroy some discs: up to 300 in an hour, if someone were to feed the machine a CD every 12 seconds.

"We sell a lot of them to offices and businesses, but not as many as you'd think. An awful lot of our orders come from recording studios. It's one way for them to get rid of CDs they don't want being leaked," Strobel said. "I haven't heard of many kids who watch MTV buying them, though."

Well, who knows. Despite the DS360's somewhat hefty price tag ($129.95), it's entirely possible that it could become the new "must have" accessory, especially when you consider that more than 1.7 billion blank CDs were sold in 2002 alone, and that a good amount of those had to be used to make mix CDs for significant others. And when those relationships go south, what better way to tell that (formerly) special someone to kiss off than by grinding up the 12-volume "Love Mix" they made for you?

"I wouldn't know a lot about that," Strobel laughed. "I used to make mixtapes, but on cassettes, and there were a few instances when I had to smash them. I never really thought about it, but if you really wanted to, you could use it to grind up you ex's CDs. Why not?"