Chinese family digs through 10 tons of garbage all night to find bag of gold worth $217,000

A woman from Hengfeng County in the city of Shangrao had brought the gold home on March 8 intending to sell it. That morning, her older sister tidied up the house and, not realizing what was in the bag, tossed it into an outdoor garbage bin, the Xiaoxiang Morning Post reported.

The owner did not notice until around 11 a.m. She called police, who reviewed surveillance footage and confirmed a sanitation truck had already collected the garbage and driven it to a waste processing plant in neighboring Yiyang County.

That afternoon, the family rushed to the plant and intercepted three trucks that were about to enter for incineration. After the woman explained the situation, the fleet captain identified the third truck as the most likely one. Yiyang County police helped negotiate with the plant’s management to release the vehicle, while the Hengfeng County sanitation department coordinated a separate site where the truck’s load could be dumped.

Over 10 tons of compressed waste was unloaded and spread across an open lot. The eight family members, wearing protective gear and headlamps, began their search around 7 to 8 p.m.

The woman described the ordeal as “looking for a needle in a haystack,” telling the Xiaoxiang Morning Post that putting all their hopes on a single truck felt like a gamble with no fallback.

After working through the night and resting for just one to two hours before dawn, the family resumed searching. By the next morning, after sifting through roughly half the garbage, the woman recognized orange peels and other household waste from her own home. Sensing the gold was close, the family concentrated their efforts and soon found the bag fully intact.

The woman told the Xiaoxiang Morning Post she has since sold some of the gold, saying she no longer dares keep that much at home. She said she plans to present commemorative banners to the police and sanitation workers who assisted.

A Hengfeng County sanitation official confirmed the incident on March 12, telling the Xiaoxiang Morning Post that helping residents minimize property losses is the department’s responsibility.

The official noted that sanitation workers did not take part in the actual search because the missing items were valuable gold.

The Yiyang County police emergency center also confirmed it received the request for help on March 8.