Sanitation workers go to great lengths to find woman's lost diamond ring in trash

Losing your valuables in the garbage can be the worst nightmare for anyone. But people continue to misplace things by accident and the aftermath of recovering those valuables becomes challenging. Luckily for South Carolina resident Melanie Harper, the City of Greenville Public Works came to her rescue when she lost her diamond wedding ring in a recycle bin while tossing in some garbage. The City of Greenville Public Works department, which takes care of recycling trash in the region, had dutiful employees who dived right in to find the precious ring for Harper.

"On Sunday, Melanie Harper lost her diamond wedding band while tossing her recyclables into the container at the Rutherford Road recycling center," the department wrote in a Facebook post. Harper had sent them an email saying that she was well aware of the slim chances of finding her ring and that if it was recovered somehow during the recycling process, then she would appreciate someone from the department contacting her. "Monday morning, instead of processing what was in the bin, Public Works supervisors and litter crew members said, 'Let's dump it on the ground and look for it,'" the Facebook post further read.

Just like trying to look for a needle in a haystack, hours of rummaging through the recyclable trash bore fruitful results and an employee named Travis Golden finally got hold of the missing diamond ring. Along with Golden, other team members like Jeff Hammond, James Burnside, Frank Daigneault and Manny Cruz were involved in the wedding band search party through heaps of trash. Fellow Facebook users complimented and applauded the efforts and commitment of the workers in the Facebook post's comment section.

Melissa Rosario wrote, "Every one of them deserves a performance review and salary increase that reflects this above and beyond-effort. Outstanding work, gentlemen!" Claudia Bowden Major commented, "Great job! Public Works has an amazing team. What a wonderful act of kindness and very hard work! Thank you for all you do. Proud of you!" Lauren Hubbard Luneckas added, "This is just amazing! What an awesome show of kindness by the PW team. I hope they know how much this is appreciated, by the ring’s owner, but by so many of us who have simply read the story, too. Outstanding!"

It is not the first time sanitation workers have gone the extra mile to retrieve people's valuables from trash. 7News reported that a woman had lost a priceless possession in New Hampshire and believed she may have accidentally thrown it out a day before Thanksgiving. The woman arrived at the trash transfer station to seek help and spoke to the General Services Director of Windham, Dennis Senibaldi. She mentioned that the ring may have accidentally gone with the trash when her husband threw it out.

He immediately decided to look at the surveillance cameras to begin his search. Senibaldi and his team had to get 20 tons of trash out before they could reach the couple's trash bag. He mentioned that identifying the items in the trash and knowing what time it was thrown played a massive role in retrieving the bag. After a rigorous search for over 2 hours, Senibaldi and his team successfully found the ring and called up the woman to return. "Talking to her on Wednesday, she was completely heartbroken. Friday, when she came in, she was happy as can be, gave me a big hug and was very thankful. It was just a good ending to a story for Thanksgiving," he told the outlet.