A South Carolina woman almost recycled something extremely precious last month when throwing materials into bins at a Greenville recycling plant.

Public Works employees spent hours searching piles of recycling materials to find the ring, safely returning it to her on Jan. 28.

The woman, Melanie Harper, emailed the city the night before and said she lost her ring at the Rutherford Road recycling center. 

“I know the likelihood of finding this is slim to none,” she wrote. “But, if the ring is found during the course of processing the recycling, I would be most appreciative if someone could contact me."

Travis Golden works streets for the Public Works department, keeping streets clean and picking up trash off the side of the road.

He’s the one who made the find.

“It was a pretty big-sized pile,” he told USA TODAY Thursday afternoon. “You wouldn’t think you would find a ring in that big ol’ pile … We kind of found two fake rings in the pile before we even found the real one.”

Finding the lost ring in a pile of recyclables

Jeff Hammond, the solid waste superintendent with the City of Greenville, called supervisors in the morning and made sure they didn’t take the bin to landfill. 

Instead, he instructed them to dump the bins on the ground so workers could search for it in the pile. They searched for a couple of hours.

“I was able to contact Melanie, who lost the ring, and I asked her what part of the bin … she put it in,” Hammond said Thursday afternoon. “She said it was the first or second window and it was closer to the building, so we kind of knew the area it should be in.”

He called supervisors back, who then isolated the search to a specific area.

“Travis moved some material and out, it popped,” Hammond said. “Probably five minutes after they isolated the search to that one area, we found it.”

Once they found it, they called Harper, who couldn’t believe they actually found it, Hammond said.

Once something is thrown into landfill, it’s ‘out of our control,’ Public Works superintendent says

Hammond said the department gets calls about other items as well. Usually by the time people call for help, the bins have been emptied. 

“This one, we actually still had the material so we were able to search for it,” he said. “A lot of times by the time they realize it, the material is out of our hands, either at landfill or recycling facilities.”

Recycling materials are processed at facilities and trash is taken to landfill. Hammond said the department processes about 260 tons of recycling materials a month and 1,500 to 2,000 tons of garbage a month.

“It’s a lot of material,” he said. “Finding something that small in that amount of material, you’ve got to be kind of lucky.”

Involved in the search were Golden, Hammond, James Burnside, Frank Daigneault and Manny Cruz. The workers will be recognized in front of the city council for their efforts.

Cruz, solid waste supervisor, said they couldn't believe it when Golden found it.

“It was a little overwhelming when we had that pile on the ground there,” Cruz said. “It was a good thing Melanie called up and pinpointed the area.”

Hammond said everyone involved in the search is married, so they truly understand how big of a deal it was.

“I know if it was any of our wives and it was something that special, we would hope somebody would do the same thing for us, so that’s kind of what we did,” Hammond said.