So I’m doing some cleaning and I found a couple of old Mac laptops in a closet. One is a white, polycarbonate MacBook (probably circa 2007?). It has what looks like a MagSafe connector, but it’s very small and the MagSafe cables I have (for 2013 and 2021 MBPs) don’t fit it, so I can’t power it up at all, which means I have no way to erase it or make sure that there’s no personal data on it.
What is the best way to dispose of (or, better, recycle) this laptop? Find a friend with a sledgehammer?
Apple will probably recycle it for you.
Can open up the base and take the HDD out and destroy it separately?
Good idea! Looks like I just need a very tiny Phillips-head screwdriver and I can probably get in there. Thanks!
The screws are likely not Phillips head. They are probably speciality “star” pattern screw heads.
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JJW
On those models, if you remove the battery, the hard drive is just to the side. You can pop it out, connect it up to another Mac by a caddy and overwrite the HDD if you wish.
I have done that on every laptop I or my familiy have ever owned. If you are recycling I am not sure you need to bother with the finesse of a specialist screwdriver. It is what claw-head hammers were invented for 
This covers everything from secure erasure to destruction with drills, nails, and hammers:
https://www.zdnet.com/article/how-to-securely-erase-hard-drives-hdds-and-solid-state-drives-ssds/