In Norway we have national deposit arrangement for almost all bottles(glass and PET) and cans used in domestic produced beverage. For beverage containers not included in the deposit arrangement a environment tax is added, making the product not competitive. Unless the container is made of paper. It works very well the return rate is almost 97%. For the RVM's both the bottle shape and barcode are used to identify redeem amount. The company Tomra, has 100% market share for RVM's. So why can not USA have same I wonder

 

probably since TOMRA is from Norway..... There are only 4 major companies that produce these types of machines, TOMRA in Norway, Kansmaker in Michigan, USA, CANDO in Oregon, USA, and ENVIPCO I believe is out of Canada....

B. Morse

 

He he I was referring to the deposit arrangement. In Norway Tomra is big because they are the only firm making that kind of machines. And they also have some patented technology. Beside no one is interested in competing Tomra. A German chain of food shops (Lidel) used some machines from NCR. But after a year many of the machine was kicked out. Because the down time for those machines was huge. And that pissed off both the customers and the employs. For the customers it was an argument not to go that shop because the RVM's never worked

 

A lot of these types of machines are proprietary, 1 of our machines alone has several patented technologies that are not available anywhere else.... TOMRA is our biggest competitor here in MI, we take their machines in as trade ins and scrap them since they are not really worth anything to anyone else.....

They must make their machines in Norway different than what they sell here, since they are the ones getting the customers upset from the machines being down all the time, and service is really poor.... and our company was the first to put out a machine that takes in all commodities in one entry hole, then sorts the PET, Cans, and Glass By barcode and commodity type / size....

I have never heard of an NCR RVM, since most of their business is usually POS (Point Of Sale) or cash register systems (NCR = National Cash Registers)....

We have a pretty good deposit arrangement for all carbonated drink containers here also, most PET, Glass or Aluminum can has a 10 cent deposit, we are also trying to add a deposit to non carbonated drink containers such as bottled water, and sports drinks to keep those from filling up the landfills....

There are some other states, including some parts of Canada that are trying to adopt the same recycling laws we have since it does work well.... But since not all states have a deposit law, it makes it easy for people to go into other states that do and make money that way, MI is not the only one with these issues, California is also trying to combat fraudulent returns for deposited containers.

B. Morse

 

BMorse, keep in mind it's trying to outsmart the common criminal by tossing an extra barcode on a can... It's a lost cause from the start..

There is absolutely positively no solution to the problem aside from bringing the return value in line with what other states are charging


There are people in every major city in a State that has a bottle deposit that live their ENTIRE life completely off returning cans picked up where they can find them, or at least supplement their income (and if you know where to go it's not shabby) The State's with a higher deposit make it more efficient, and enough bonus c
ash compared to the lower deposit states to make it worth while to try to either fake or redirect the right product.

I'm not a criminal or anyone interested in such a thing, but how hard do you think it would be to make a rubber stamp which duplicated that barcode to someone that could double their profits?

If you're banging your head on a brick wall trying to figure this out, give up.

 

Did you forget your anti-'the world sucks' pills today sceadwian?

He has a company that makes reverse vending machines. The law REQUIRES him to read the code.

So I dont think giving up is an option.

BMorse:

But the problem I am having to deal with is the fact the state wants us to develop a system that can read the mark off of the bottom of the can, we are supposed to follow a very strict guideline in determining if the mark is an inclusive or exclusive mark,

 

I didn't say he shouldn't read the code. I said that reading it to determine a cans source is not possible, unless it's a trusted system. The distribution system is already knowng to be broken.

 

Thats true. I think reading the code is gonna be a toughy. A lot of the time the ink is smeared on the cans anyway.. I cant imagine a barcode being clear enough to get accurate repeatable results.

 

Barcodes are relative, that's why they're easy to read, it's distance between any two distinguishable points. They can be grown or shrunk A LOT before they're not readable. Distortion is a problem but even in the case of a concave can, not enough to distort a barcode. I've seen plastic packages with S curves like you wouldn't believe go through a barcode scanner juuuust fine.


It has nothing whatsoever to do with the barcode itself, they're tried and proven technology. In this particular application the net gain is not just zero, it's less than zero because even with teh correct aims the curent system is already failing. Let alnoe if someone were rubber stamping the associated barcode. I mean to make this successful you'd have to serialize every can in the state and make it one time redeemable.

 

If you were applying a sticker, or preprinted barcode, I would agree. But if they are using the high-speed ink-jets on a high-speed canning line, they get quite distorted.

Just take a look at the bottom of a soda can.

 

Reading the barcode, and or using OCR software to recognize the MI 10C on the top of the can is not enough in this case, there are too many other non deposited states that have these cans also, that is why we are developing a system specifically for MI. The mark on the bottom of the cans I was referring to is one example of an encoded security feature. The companies who are now marking their cans have been doing it for over a year now, and I was just trying to see if any of these marked items are being distributed out of the state, since it has been a year I figured this should have given it ample to time to get spread out.... we already have the capabilities of reading the codes and deciphering them, I have actually been working with a German firm out of Germany for almost a year now developing a high speed imaging system (I am the only one in the US or outside Germany that has one of these systems to play with )

and I do not give up on anything .... the harder the task at hand, the better I perform and produce viable solutions .....

B. Morse

 

Compression or expansion is not an issue retched, even modest distortion isn't an issue. If you're using high speed ink jets on a high speed canning line and things are timed properly there should be minimal overall distortion.

 

Then all is good in the world.

 

Compression or expansion is not an issue retched, even modest distortion isn't an issue. If you're using high speed ink jets on a high speed canning line and things are timed properly there should be minimal overall distortion.

But these companies are so cheap that they do not care and hence the marks are distorted beyond specifications.... those marks are supposed to be grouped in a 3.8mm x 2.8mm max. pattern, they don't even come close......

B. Morse

 

Compression or expansion is not an issue retched, even modest distortion isn't an issue. If you're using high speed ink jets on a high speed canning line and things are timed properly there should be minimal overall distortion.

Your "simulation" works fine, unfortunatly that is not the reality.

Like I said, look on the bottom of the can.

And if the timing was set properly, and the ink levels didn't change, and nozzles dont clog, etc.. all would be good.

You are thinking of the SPICE model of this process.. like I said, the reality is much different.