There is also the consideration of things stored in flash memory and processor and motherboard caches which while requiring pretty complex know how to get anything out of are still possible. It’s not just the hard drive.

These devices in theory are being recycled and I would say it’s easier to recycle Apple devices as they are made of mostly recycled materials already and most of that is aluminum which is very easy to recycle. Until you can find a way to ensure there is no way to discover data off an old device there is no other way than destruction.

The companies you are speaking of are mostly like I stated: government institutions working to protect state secrets, hospitals looking to protect patient records, financial institutions like your bank or insurance company protecting your financial info. A lot of this is done to protect people like you from getting their data stolen, it’s not just to protect themselves. Additionally many of the institutions I mentioned are bound to security standards set forth by government institutions as a minimum to prevent leaks so it’s not necessarily up to them, it’s just good practice in general although not every company employs device destruction and it’s not for every class of device.