From Trash to Triumph
A man in Bitonto, Italy, accidentally cast his winning lottery ticket into a shop bin after a cashier told him the prize was too large to be paid out. The ticket passed into the hands of waste workers, only to be extracted two days later after a family member recognised the winning numbers.
The bin truck, driven by the SanB company, was located before its load was compacted for landfill. The driver and his crew performed a painstaking search inside the truck’s many bags and compartments, eventually finding the intact ticket hidden beneath damaged ones.
The cost of the operation was charged to the original ticket holder, who had signed a declaration covering recovery expenses. The relief was sweet, as the man won the full €1m prize and the workers cheered by pulling a small scratch card that yielded a brief €50 win.
The whole episode is a striking reminder of how ordinary people can stumble onto extraordinary luck—and how the often unnoticed labor of bin operators can turn a potential loss into a miracle.
