Actually, it is not a must to return the card to card centre.
there are 2 reasons why the card centre to ask their customer to return card:
1. for security reason. Card centre will have some special method to handle those wasted cards. It is much save than throw by yourself.
2. To lower the operation cost of bank. Bank is required to pay much more if you not return the card to card centre. Thus, they will ask you to send back the card to them if you want to canx the card.