The good thing about large businesses is that they don’t typically throw hardware in the garbage, especially drives. They’ll most likely either sell the wiped drives to a recycler/refurbisher, or donate them to a charity that does the same for the tax write-off.

This is one of the rare instances where being profit driven is helpful.

I worked in the surplus warehouse for a university, and all of their computer equipment went to a local prison with a program that has inmates refurbish them and gives them to schools in low income areas. The stuff that can’t be refurbished gets recycled.