New York City sanitation workers dug through 20,000 pounds of garbage to ensure that one man\u2019s trash didn\u2019t also mean the loss of his treasure.<\/p>\n
A Brooklyn man is breathing a massive sigh of relief after he accidentally threw a pair of priceless family rings in the garbage at a large residential building last month.<\/p>\n
The ring\u2019s owner realized the mistake before the trash was picked up, so he met sanitation workers at the curb on July 28 to explain the predicament, a spokesperson for the New York City Department of Sanitation told TODAY.com in an email statement.<\/p>\n
The heirloom rings were a gold-and-diamond promise ring and platinum-and-diamond engagement ring that had been in the family for four generations, according to the DSNY.<\/p>\n
Sanitation workers were able to isolate the truck and slowly dump the nearly 20,000 pounds of trash across a concrete floor to be searched. After only 10 minutes, the rings were found to the relief and joy of the resident, whose name was withheld by the DSNY.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt isn\u2019t exactly a needle in a haystack, but some accidentally discarded rings were dug up!,\u201d the DSNY wrote on\u00a0Facebook<\/a>.<\/p>\n It isn’t exactly a needle in a haystack, but some accidentally discarded rings were dug up!<\/p>\n A Brooklyn resident recently realized some irreplaceable heirlooms were accidentally thrown out, and contacted us the second he realized it. With a dumped out truck and a little bit of\u2026 pic.twitter.com\/vxZMYEu2lH<\/a><\/p>\n \u2014 NYC Sanitation (@NYCSanitation) August 7, 2026<\/a> <\/p>\n \u201cCan you imagine?\u201d Savannah Guthrie said on TODAY Aug. 10. \u201cOut of the goodness of their hearts being like, \u2018I\u2019m going to sift through 20,000 pounds of trash,\u2019 and they found it! Incredible.\u201d<\/p>\n The DSNY spokesperson said searches like that happen multiple times a year, and there is a process for them.<\/p>\n Any residents who accidentally throw out a valuable item are urged to call 311 as soon as possible. After each call, sanitation workers aim to isolate the truck and slowly dump the contents on a concrete floor to be sifted through.<\/p>\n The timeliness of the call is crucial. If a truck has already dumped the trash at a transfer station, there\u2019s no way to recover the lost item because it\u2019s usually immediately mixed with trash from other trucks to be put into a barge or railcar.<\/p>\n The resident is allowed to participate in the search for his or her item and can bring one friend to help. The DSNY provides gloves, shovels, pickers and other tools for the search while also sharing possible spots to look. For instance, if the person\u2019s address was at the beginning of the sanitation truck\u2019s route, the material may be more near the back of the truck.<\/p>\n The recovery of the Brooklyn man\u2019s rings is the latest success story for the DSNY, which has previously found everything from a\u00a0wallet<\/a>\u00a0to a\u00a0laptop<\/a>\u00a0that had been accidentally tossed out.<\/p>\n \u201cWay to go New York City Sanitation,\u201d Craig Melvin said on TODAY.<\/p>\n \n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tAfter all that confetti has come down, there comes a lot of cleanup \u2014 all handled thanks to workers from the City’s Department of Sanitation, known as New York’s Strongest. NBC New York’s Chris Jose reports.\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n This story first\u00a0appeared on TODAY.com<\/a>. More from TODAY:<\/p>\n \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t