Currently, most bottle machines on the market follow a cumbersome process: you drop in a can or bottle, receive a receipt, and then redeem it for a refund at a shop. The receipt can easily be lost, misplaced, or forgotten. Some machines offer a refund directly to your bank account, but you need to have your payment card on hand and insert it into a reader.

Can it be simpler? Absolutely. Researchers from the Łukasiewicz - Poznan Institute of Technology are working on a solution that will revolutionize the process.


Your Magic Words

The new bottle vending machine will return money to your account without needing to provide your account number or carry a card. “We are creating an algorithm that will allow any bank account number to be encoded with a few words. In very visual terms, it will look like this: when returning a bottle to the recycling machine, it will be enough to say, for example, a sequence of three specific words and the deposit will automatically be transferred to our account, without providing any other data or, for example, holding a card or a phone,” explains Tomasz Markowski of Łukasiewicz - PIT. “The mechanism that will allow us to encode the account number will be available on our website, but we can also pass it on to the banks, which will make it available in their applications,” he adds.

The algorithm will initially be in Polish, but it can easily be used in other languages.


User-Friendly Design

The researchers aimed to create a highly user-friendly solution. We don’t always have our wallet or phone with us, and children will also be able to use this solution, with refunds going directly to their parent's account.
“We want our devices to stand where people are, i.e., at playgrounds, near schools, in town centers, recreational areas, or by small shops. Wherever people consume beverages, by placing a recycling machine near them, we can influence their decision to recycle the packaging rather than throw it in the bin,” Markowski notes.
Experience from countries with deposit systems shows that two factors are crucial for success: the deposit amount and the convenience of return. The new reverse vending machine from Poznań, called the Recyclomat, is designed to excel in both areas and is set to begin trials in July.