Chinese woman’s US$16,000 diamond ring saved from waste incinerator
Owner praises efforts of eight sanitation employees who took two hours to find her precious jewel
A woman from eastern China was full of praise for workers at a waste management facility this week after they rummaged through tonnes of trash to find a diamond ring she had accidentally thrown away.
The woman, identified only by her surname Xia, said the ring was worth about 110,000 yuan (US$16,650), Yangzhou Evening Post reported on Wednesday.
After realising she had discarded the jewel in a bag of trash on Monday while tidying her home in Yangzhou, Jiangsu province, Xia raced to her local sanitation office to report it.
She was just in time. Chen Yangzhou, the office’s director, said that all of the waste collected from her neighbourhood had been compacted and was ready to be transported to the incineration plant.
As the processing facility was closed by the time Xia arrived, Chen told her to return on Tuesday morning, the report said, adding that he also posted a security guard to watch over the bales of waste to ensure they were not prematurely taken to the incinerator.
On Tuesday morning, eight workers at the facility broke up 13 tonnes of compacted waste and after two hours of searching, the precious jewel was found.
The eagle-eyed worker was identified as Yang Zhenglong.
“Their generous spirit is worth more than my ring,” Xia was quoted as saying.
