Reverse vending machines are commonly used for example in supermarkets to receive and scan used beverage containers, such as plastic bottles, glass bottles or cans. The scan is usually conducted while the used beverage container lies on conveyor belts which are provided for conveying the container into the reverse vending machine. In order to access the bar code printed on the used beverage container, usually additional to the conveyor belts, driven wheels are provided in between the conveyor belts to rotate the containers about their longitudinal axes. Based on the scan results, the used beverage containers are either accepted or rejected by the reverse vending machine. In case they are accepted, a conveyor belt feeds them into the reverse vending machine, where they may be sorted, sequenced etc. In case they are rejected, the conveyor belt is reversed and feeds the used beverage container out of the reverse vending machine back to the consumer.
Due to contamination of the conveyor belts, the reliability of the reverse vending machines might decrease over time. Cleaning of the conveyor belts might be troublesome, because they are not fully accessible.