> none of those scenarios are happening

My last MacBooks were sold or refurbished by Apple.

I'm not sure I understand your comment here? Are you referring to the end of your MacBooks' life, or the beginning? It's somewhat ambiguous.

Assuming you are referring to end of life process:

Apple's kit sold as refurb is done from their incoming returns — faulty, or otherwise unwanted, systems.

Everything sent to them as a trade-in isn't handled by Apple at all: it's contracted out to third-party companies. (This likely applies to their recycling programme also, but I've not looked into it)

At least: these things certainly used to be the case — and there have been a whole bunch of articles online that support this, over the years. I would love to see evidence to the contrary if things have changed?

— But like I said: I'm not sure I understand your comment, so maybe my points here are irrelevant.

I wasn't talking about your MacBook. I was talking in reference to my above point that these are accumulating at recyclers and being thrown out.

If they are stolen, good.

It will prevent further theft if nobody made any profit.