8 cleaners rummage through 13 tons of trash to find woman’s 110,000 yuan diamond ring

Like finding a needle in a haystack, but much stinkier.

On Monday, a woman surnamed Xia was cleaning up her home in Yangzhou, Jiangsu province when she accidentally threw away her diamond ring, worth about 110,000 yuan ($16,700). By the time, she realized what had happened, the ring was already on the way to the dump.

As fast as she could, Xia made her way to the offices of her local sanitation department. The director there informed her that the trash from her neighborhood had already been compacted and was awaiting transport to the incinerator, the Beijing Times reports.

He told Xia that she should come back the following morning. In the meantime, he would pull the massive bundles of garbage out of the incinerator line and post guards overnight to make sure they were not mistakenly put back in line.

On Tuesday morning, eight sanitation workers spent two hours rummaging through 13 tons of garbage before finally uncovering the woman’s ring.

“They said that they found the ring and I thought they were just joking at first,” Xia told reporters afterward. “I’m incredibly grateful to them. Although this ring is worth over 100,000 yuan, the sanitation workers’ generous spirit is more valuable.”

Last year, 15 dedicated Shanghai street cleaners participated in a similar sort of treasure hunt, searching through 5 tons of garbage for three hours to find a tourist’s lost iPhone.

[Images via Beijing Times]