It's not a guarantee :) But if you think for 5 minutes about how you would go about decreasing the volume and the toxicity of the electronics that gets landfilled every year, you might come to realize (like I did) that what EPEAT is doing is a more effective way to reach your hypothetical goal than a corporation's undertaking to take old products off the hands of consumers if the consumers bring them to their retail stores. (It's more effective because there're so many ways that the corporation can directly or indirectly put the old products on a boat to China or India.)
"Apple meets the requirements of the Basel Convention on the Control of Transboundary Movements of Hazardous Wastes and their Disposal. All e-waste collected by Apple-controlled voluntary and regulatory programs worldwide is processed in the region in which it was collected. Our recyclers must comply with all health and safety laws, and we do not allow the use of prison labour. Apple recyclers do not dispose of hazardous electronic waste in solid-waste landfills or incinerators. For an example of the stringent processing and operational controls Apple places on its directly contracted recyclers, read an excerpt from our recycler requirements agreement [PDF]."
