Counting centres bag up non-refillable beverage packaging from the German single-use deposit system. Consumers return this packaging to stores manually or to specialised reverse vending machines that do NOT crush the beverage packaging once it has been scanned. This packaging is then delivered in large sacks that are sealed with a tamper-proof, barcoded fastener known as a “talon”. This barcode tells us where the sack came from and who needs to be reimbursed for the deposits paid out. The high-throughput counting machines then scan this talon before automatically counting the entire contents of the sack, creating the data records for the Clearing Centre and ultimately crushing the packaging so that it cannot be used to claim a deposit a second time. This process therefore produces a data record and a valuable raw material.