Young Romanian develops system allowing bag-based return of recyclable packaging

A young Romanian has developed a new system that allows people to return entire bags of recyclable packaging at once, replacing the traditional method of inserting bottles one by one into reverse-vending machines. The concept, called IZI, was created by Ștefan Parascanu, who returned to Romania after studying and working in the United Kingdom.

The idea emerged during an informal competition among friends to see who could feed packaging into a return machine the fastest, according to the press release. Parascanu noticed the process was slow and inconvenient, and began exploring whether deposits could instead be collected by simply dropping off a labeled bag.