I don't think Apple is claiming they were always good about this, though for quite a long time they've at least been making some movements towards more sustaina

I don't think Apple is claiming they were always good about this, though for quite a long time they've at least been making some movements towards more sustainable products--as an example, they were an early adopter of minimal-plastics packaging in tech, and to "feel more premium" the market chased them. In terms of software, iPadOS 16 works on devices as far back as the iPad Air 3 and the iPad 5, though, which is pretty deep into the "usable life" of these electronics. Beyond that, this definition of "repurposing" seems...slanted. You probably aren't repurposing an iPad 1 anyway because it's a very slow single-core processor, but I still have multiple 30-pin-connector iPads around my house (including at least one iPad 2) being used as dedicated kiosks/control surfaces for stuff. I wouldn't expose them to the internet, but I also don't really see a reason why I would anyway--they'd be too slow to use to browse the web. (I do the same with a couple of old Nexus tablets, too.) And that I repurpose them is a particularly exceptional use case. It is for any stuff that old. This mythical idea of "oh, well, if they had unlocked bootloaders, people would still be using iPhones and iPads long into the future!" is just...pretty clearly untrue. Android devices with unlocked bootloaders end up in the bin at no less of a rate than iOS devices, even though one could go install an AOSP flavor on them and keep them ticking. There aren't enough people interested in doing so to soak up all of those; why would adding more devices move the needle?