Garbage collectors in southern Italy have recovered a winning lottery ticket worth €1 million ($1.15 million) after its owner mistakenly threw it into a rubbish bin, triggering a painstaking search through a truckload of waste.
The unnamed woman, a resident of Bitonto, had played her usual Saturday lottery numbers before visiting a local outlet the following day to check the outcome, according to DW News.
Reports by AFP and the Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera said the lottery terminal displayed the message “non-payable”, a routine notification indicating that the prize exceeded the amount that could be redeemed at a retail shop.
Believing the message meant her ticket had not won, she discarded it in a nearby bin.
She later realised the mistake after a family member recognised that her chosen numbers — 2, 4, 8, 10 and 51 — matched the winning combination. By that time, however, the waste had already been collected by a garbage truck.
Roberto Nicola Toscano, administrator of waste management company SANB, said the woman immediately contacted the company in distress.
“The winner always played the same numbers, as they were associated with a loved one,” Toscano said.
SANB traced the route of the refuse truck, located the correct vehicle and halted it before its contents were processed.
According to Toscano, the truck was redirected to a specialised facility because searching through household waste involved potential safety hazards.
“Workers then spent an entire day sorting through the rubbish,” he said.
The operation ended successfully after the team located the ticket.
Toscano told AFP the winning slip was found “miraculously still in one piece.”
Speaking to Corriere della Sera, Toscano said the workers spent a day “working in conditions that were anything but pleasant” before finding the ticket.
He added that the woman broke down in tears after receiving a phone call confirming the ticket had been recovered.
Toscano credited the successful recovery to careful planning, professionalism and a measure of good fortune, saying the outcome would not have been possible without the dedication of the sanitation workers.
Although SANB is a public entity, meaning the additional cost of the search would ordinarily fall on taxpayers, Toscano told AFP that the woman had agreed to “cover all of the additional costs.”
