If you want your Apple products to be "properly recycled" then take them to Apple when you EOL them. Relying upon a shiny EPEAT logo/cert to make your decision easier is ignoring that there are other ways to be environmentally friendly.
Why should I change my business process to make Apple more money? I'm not hauling thousands of devices to Apple -- particularly if I can save money by using any of a half dozen competitors.
I have contracts with a half dozen recycling vendors who take my junk and dispose of them in a manner deemed acceptable by us. Some of them even pay us to take certain products.
A "shiny EPEAT certification" means that I can call any of the thousands of recycling vendors in the United States and get my gear hauled off and disposed of in a sustainable and ethical manner, and at a reasonable price. No African children are smelting wires from equipment originating from my company. Memory from my Dell devices is recovered and resold. Batteries from my Thinkpads are dissembled and recycled.
I am unknowlegble on this topic; what do we know about how they recycle their equipment? Recycle is not a binary option, there are different amounts that something can be, which is also different from how much it is.
