Any way you swipe it.

This morning, as I deposited Bighead's expired MetroCard into the Metrocards receptacle, I got quite a bee in my bonnet.

Where do expired MetroCards go?

I’ve asked a couple of people and no one seems to know. Some people don’t even put their expired cards in the receptacle. They just throw them away in the big trashcans. So I asked myself, “Self, don’t you think that if the MTA just wanted you to throw the cards away they would dispense with the repositories? If the MetroCards were meant for the trashcans then why aren’t there trashcans near the vending machines as opposed to the leetle MetroCard Here bins?”

The fact that there are places specifically designed and designated for MetroCards leads me to believe that they are being collected and what I would like to know is: for what purpose?

I’ve spent a good part of the morning looking around on the Internet to see if it can provide me with an answer and I haven’t yet found anything that fits the bill.

I did, however, come across this. (There's more here.)
And I do fervently hope the this kind of thing is the answer.