I have many strong feeling towards 'Recycle Mode’ but sticking plainly to the facts. Erasing user data from a device is one thing but driving up profits at the cost of the environment for profits sake alone is another. Recycle mode should be removed in my opinion, the idea of a landfill of Sonos devices that should still be in service makes anyone uneasy. Then there is the thought of all the precious metals involved in manufacture, the time it will take for those dense high-quality plastics and fibre glass to decay, the time it will take for the PCB to decay, the chemical residue that will remain afterwards in the soil, not to mention if those rare materials in manufacture were conflict free in the first place.
A quick google search of what the world does with e-waste shows a trend for shipping it to a developing country where they can be dumped and left to rot for the next millennia. That high quality poly-carbonate exterior should still be distinguishable by 3020.
My physics teacher taught me always point out problems but with a solution. So how about wipe the data, and let the device function as normal. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯