1) Your link only mentions the magnets, nothing else in relation to rare earth elements.
2) Plastic is not recyclable in a lot of jurisdictions. Seattle stopped collecting it all together.
3) Most people will not ecycle things. Most people will just throw them in the trash instead of driving to a big box store to drop of headphones for ecycling.
3a) Sure, this behavior is common across electronics (being lazy, throwing away) but when you design an electrical device to never be repaired you are just making things worse.