Italian garbage workers recover €1m lottery ticket win from trash

Garbage workers in southern Italy have recovered a €1 million ($1.15 million) winning lottery ticket after its owner mistakenly threw it into a trash bin, prompting an extensive search through a truckload of waste.

The unnamed woman, from the city of Bitonto, had played her regular Saturday lottery numbers before visiting a local shop on Sunday to check the result, according to DW News on Wednesday.

According to AFP and Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera, the lottery terminal displayed the message “non-payable” — a standard notification indicating that the prize was too large to be redeemed at the retail outlet.

Misinterpreting the message as meaning the ticket had not won, she threw it into a rubbish bin.

Roberto Nicola Toscano, administrator of waste management company SANB, said the woman later realised her mistake after a family member recognised that her numbers — 2, 4, 8, 10 and 51 — matched the winning combination.

By then, however, the rubbish bin containing the ticket had already been emptied by a garbage truck.

“The winner always played the same numbers, as they were associated with a loved one,” Toscano said.

After receiving what he described as a panicked call from the woman, SANB traced the waste collection vehicle’s route, identified the correct truck and stopped it before the refuse was processed.

According to Toscano, the truck was diverted to a specialised facility because searching through household waste posed potential safety risks.

“Workers then spent an entire day sorting through the rubbish,” he said.

The search ended successfully, with Toscano telling AFP the ticket 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 locating the winning ticket.

He added that the woman burst into tears after being informed by telephone that the ticket had been recovered.

Toscano told the newspaper that professionalism, organisation and a significant amount of luck made the recovery possible, saying the outcome could not have been achieved without the “sanitation workers’ efforts.”

As SANB is a public entity, the “cost of the operation would ordinarily be borne by taxpayers.”

However, Toscano told AFP that the woman had promised to “cover all of the additional costs.”(Punch)