Refuse collectors help Italian woman recover binned €1m lottery ticket

Lead

Waste collectors in the southern Italian city of Bitonto have recovered a €1 million lottery ticket that its winner had accidentally thrown away, according to the waste management company involved. The ticket was found "miraculously still in one piece" after workers searched through an entire truckload of rubbish, Roberto Nicola Toscano, administrator of the SANB waste company, told AFP.

The woman, who has not been named, had played the same numbers for some time because they were associated with a loved one, Toscano said. After Saturday's draw, she went to a local shop on Sunday to check her ticket, but the machine read "non-payable," a message that usually indicates the prize exceeds what a small retailer can redeem. She misinterpreted the message as meaning she had not won.

Coverage Comparison

Deutsche Welle and The Guardian both reported the incident, focusing on the extraordinary chain of events that led to the ticket's recovery. Both outlets quoted Toscano, who described how the woman's family member recognized the winning numbers and alerted her, but by then the ticket had already been discarded and collected by a garbage truck.

Toscano told AFP that after SANB was contacted, the company reconstructed the ticket's journey and identified the correct truck, which was stopped before it could compact the waste further. Because of the potential danger from materials in the trash, the vehicle was taken to a specialized facility for the search.

Key Claims

• A €1m lottery ticket was recovered from rubbish in Italy after the winner called refuse collectors for help, as reported by both Deutsche Welle and The Guardian.
• The ticket was found "miraculously still in one piece" after workers combed through mounds of rubbish, according to Toscano.
• The winner always played the same numbers because they were associated with a loved one, Toscano said.
• The winning combination was 2, 4, 8, 10, and 51, as reported by Italian newspaper Corriere Della Sera, cited in Deutsche Welle's coverage.
• The search took over a day in conditions that were "anything but pleasant," Toscano told Corriere Della Sera, as cited by Deutsche Welle.
• The woman had to sign a promise to "cover all of the additional costs" incurred by the search, according to The Guardian, which noted SANB is a public agency, meaning the cost would otherwise have fallen on taxpayers.

Toscano said the workers found various tickets and stubs during the search before locating the correct one, still intact. When he informed the winner, "she cried with emotion," he said. "I would have hugged her, but we were on the phone."