Integration of a Reverse Vending Machine Sensing System in Sorting and Detecting Plastic Bottle Waste

A reverse vending machine is a device that uses garbage, such as used plastic bottles, to produce rewards when it is fed into the system one unit at a time. The loadcell sensor module HX711 and light-dependent resistor (LDR) sensor, as well as the ultrasonic sensor HCSR04, are used in the system’s design. The system also uses the Arduino Mega 2560 microcontroller. This study aims to design an embedded system to assist in the identification of plastic bottle waste based on volume, transparency, and weight, to observe the test findings, and to contrast the test results with earlier research on the plastic bottleneck detection system. The study approach involves integrating the many parts of the plastic bottle garbage detecting systems into a single system by building system integration. The Plastic Bottle Garbage Detection System developed and installed in the Reverse Vending Machine (RVM) provided detection results of up to 95.33% of the testing results of 33 sample plastic bottler garbs in various sizes tested ranging from 160 to 1500 ml with a different number of fruits per sample. On each sample tested, testing was done up to 30 times to see how many detections there were. As a reference and benchmark for the development of plastic bottle waste detection systems using straightforward components with better results in the future, this improved detection result is anticipated to be a fundamental focus for the field of sensing systems and electronics education.