The stressful everyday life seems to “block” the mind of many citizens and there are not a few times that together with the garbage they throw various valuable objects into the trash and recycling bins: from money, watches, jewelry, credit cards to house or business keys their car.

The man who, along with the garbage, threw a bag of gold worth several thousand euros into a bin in eastern Thessaloniki yesterday afternoon, was particularly lucky as the employees of the central municipality immediately set up a “business” and managed to discover among the remains the “lost treasure”.

However, it is not the only case in Thessaloniki, since several abstract citizens throw their valuable objects in the bins and then “run” to inform the cleaning services, asking the workers for help in locating them.

“In our municipality, most of the cases we had to intervene involved the clothes recycling bins. When citizens start cleaning out their homes and closets, they throw away what they don’t need, but they have forgotten that they have left behind some valuable items,” Sakis Lazaridis, deputy mayor for cleaning and recycling of the Pavlos Mela municipality, told APE-MBE.

The majority of forgetful people are lucky in the agony of the search, because they quickly realize their mistake and the communication with the authorities is immediate.

In the bins of the municipality of Pavlos Melas, together with the clothes for recycling, watches and gold pieces have been thrown.

“Most of the time we find them, because the search process is easier in clothes. In the last year we have found valuables three times in a clothes recycling bin and once in a blue bin. On the contrary, one citizen was unlucky for us as we did not manage to find anything” adds Mr. Lazaridis.

In the Cleaning service of the municipality of Kalamaria, most calls are for house or car keys and wallets with credit cards as reported by the responsible deputy mayor, Stelios Matsaridis. “We get calls about items that have been lost in the trash. A citizen called us and told us about an envelope that was thrown in a bin and he needed it. You understand that such an object is very difficult to detect”, he adds.

In addition, the Cleanliness workers of the municipalities of Thessaloniki, during the collection of waste, find a pile of discarded bags among the garbage.

In these cases, they open them as there may have been a previous theft and it is not uncommon for them to have identified identities and valuable documents which they immediately inform the police authorities about so that they can be attributed to their owners.