A Tayside mum has thanked workers who picked through hundreds of tons of rubbish to find her daughter’s lost Christmas presents.
Kay Stewart, 55, was finishing off renovations on her home in Forfar last weekend when she noticed four bags of presents worth around £850 had been mistakenly taken to the skip with the DIY leftovers.
Kay had bought the gifts for her three daughters, aged between 18 and 29.
The fourth bag contained birthday presents for one of the girls, who was born on Christmas Eve.
Kay and her husband rushed to Forfar recycling centre only to discover the load was already on its way to Baldovie recycling centre in Dundee.
She said: “We were absolutely gutted.”
Needle in a haystack
Managers at the regional centre told her there was little or no chance of finding the gifts, but promised they would do all they could.
Kay was “absolutely delighted” to get a call a few days later explaining the Baldovie team, led by Alex Watson, had found one of the bags of gifts.
“I can’t believe they went out of their way to find them,” she said.
“They were delighted on the phone. He said at least we’ve made someone’s Christmas. I can’t thank them enough for going out of their way.
Gifts had gone through the crusher
“When I saw the sheer amount of stuff they had to go through I thought, ‘we don’t have a hope in hell in getting anything back’.”
She said the recovered gifts had already been through the crusher – twice.
“Most of things are alright, the clothes and dressing gowns. There’s a pair of trainers in there. The box is all scuffed up, but the trainers are alright,” she said.
Bag burst and presents dropped out
John Cowan, contract manager at Baldovie, thanked his team for their work.
“When these things happen the chances of us finding it are quite slim but the guys put in a real effort,” he said.
“We deal with about 400 tonnes of waste every day so you can imagine the effort they had to put in.
“The rubbish is constantly moving with more stuff piling up all the time.”
He said Kay got in touch really quickly so the team had a fair idea of what area the bags would be in.
“We really wanted to find them because we hated the idea of someone losing all that at Christmas,” he added.
“The guys were going through the area with a JCB shovel loader and trying to be really slow and careful but one of the bags actually burst and that’s how we found them.
“It meant we had to work slower but we didn’t want anyone to lose their Christmas presents.
“It does happen occasionally with things come in by accident and often we can’t find it because stuff goes through the process so quickly. If you ever put something in your bin by accident tell us that day or the day after, otherwise it’s going to be very unlikely we’ll find it.
“We’re glad this time it was a happy ending, especially this close to Christmas.”