[oaiey]

Well, not everyone needs to do a reverse vending machine. Just hand them back to the cashier and he returns you money. Goes that far that when a restaurant sells a full bottle they need to take it back.

We have this system also in Germany since the late 80s (I think) and it works very well. Current incentive ranges from 8ct (beer glass bottles ... beer lobby always has exceptions ;)) to 25ct (plastic bottles)

[faeyanpiraat]

Do the bottles need to be full size, or do they accept crushed ones?

[MandieD]

The lightweight plastic ones are "Einweg" ("single use"), and the deposit is to get the material back for recycling - as long as the deposit label will scan, it's accepted. It's easier to scan them in the automats if they're not crushed; my German husband does not seem to have fully internalized this, so I reinflate them when they get rejected.

Glass bottles (beer, juice, milk and yoghurt) are "Mehrweg" ("multi-use"), and they actually want a bottle to sterilize and reuse (preferably with metal lid in the case of the milk and joghurt bottles), so if it's broken, it's technically trash and should go in the Altglas (old glass) containers you see at least once in every city neighborhood.

[ratww]

> Glass bottles (beer, juice, milk and yoghurt) are "Mehrweg" ("multi-use")

There is also a special case of a Mehrweg 1L plastic bottle, used mostly by Coca Cola. It is also sterilised before reuse.

> preferably with metal lid in the case of the milk and joghurt bottles

Ooops, I didn't know that. Thank you.

[max_hammer]

If barcode is readable they accept semi-crushed bottles.

[biztos]

For plastic bottles at least for the machine you would have to un-crush it, it scans the bottle.

For beer bottles, I dunno, try it out and report back?

[faeyanpiraat]

It would be quite a long trip for me to try it.

[ratww]

How do you crush a beer bottle? They're always glass, no?

Or do you mean the beer can? In this case they can't be crushed, because the barcode has to be readable!

A friend tried hehe. If they're not too damaged you can put them back into shape, the machine is quite robust.