A large sum of cash mistakenly discarded as trash was returned to its owner by South Korean sanitation workers.
According to Sejong City officials and reports on Wednesday, around 10 a.m. on February 24, a distress call was made to the Resource Circulation Division of Sejong City Hall. Officer Kang Hyun Kyu calmed the caller before asking about the situation.
The caller was a woman in her 60s living in an apartment in Sejong City. She asked for help, explaining that she had accidentally thrown away KRW 26 million ($18,000), intended for her son’s hospital expenses, into the automated waste collection system (CleanNet), mistaking it for trash. Remembering that waste thrown into CleanNet is transported to a waste collection site, Officer Kang urgently contacted the site and ordered an immediate halt to waste removal.
The woman rushed to the waste collection site but was shocked to see 24 tons of compressed trash stacked inside a container box.
She was about to give up, thinking that finding the money was practically impossible. However, upon hearing that the money was meant for her son’s surgery, the sanitation workers decided to search through the piles of trash.
They moved the trash-filled container box to an open area, dumped the waste, and began sifting through it piece by piece.
Because CleanNet uses powerful suction to collect trash, most garbage bags had already been torn apart, scattering their contents everywhere.
Then, one of the sanitation workers shouted that he had found a 50,000 KRW ($35) bill, and another worker nearby discovered several 10,000 KRW ($7) bills.
After eight hours of searching the trash pile, the sanitation workers recovered KRW 18.28 million ($12,600). The remaining cash was missing, possibly torn or mixed with other waste.
This heartwarming story of Sejong City’s sanitation workers became known after the woman posted a message of gratitude on the city’s website.
In her message, she wrote, “Seeing the enormous amount of trash, I thought it was impossible to find the money and felt hopeless, but the workers said they would try. I cried as they searched for each bill hidden in the trash.” She added, “They refused even a small token of appreciation and instead felt sorry for being unable to recover all of it. I sincerely thank the staff of Sejong City.”