In Michigan, we have a 10¢ deposit on cans and bottles. They’re refunded by feeding empties into a machine that counts them up. But there are never enough machines, so a line forms. And right now I’m watching 7 dopes inspect each container individually before feeding it into the machine.
These machines used to require you to put the barcode into the right position. Maybe they’re still used to those machines and therefore look for the barcode on each container?