Garbage collectors searched through a landfill site for a grandmother's gold jewellery that was accidentally thrown away - finally reuniting her with the valuable items.

The team named Pairoj, Pornchai, and Aof assisted Nai Chansiri, 71, when she arrived at the 1,600 sqm facility with her sister, who unwittingly discarded the towel-wrapped chain of necklaces in Nakhon Nayok province, Thailand, on April 17.

The workers spent almost half an hour rummaging through trash bags until they found the gold accessories worth 800,000 baht (17,510.23 GBP).

It is a stark contrast to a similar situation in the UK, in which an IT engineer was banned from searching through a landfill site for his missing Bitcoin hard drive worth around 227m GBP.

Footage shows the delighted garbage men posing for pictures with the old woman and her sister after they found the necklaces tucked safely in one of the workers' hats. The daughter then handed over a reward.

The old woman said: ‘My sister from Lopburi province helped me clean the house, unaware that I had placed the gold ornaments inside a towel, she mistook them from trash while I was away.

‘When I returned, I realised where I had kept the gold and immediately suspected that my sister might have disposed of them.

'I was deeply shocked, fearing the loss of a valuable possession until my neighbour suggested checking the Dong Lakhon Subdistrict Administrative Organisation Office before they were discarded.'

The two women rushed to the landfill and saw the workers sorting the bags out, so they asked for help searching the trucks.

She said: ‘Fortunately, they found the towel with my gold jewellery. I was crying when I got them back. I have been collecting them for more than 50 years.'

For their help, the old woman said she rewarded them as a token of gratitude.

While the old woman had retrieved her valuables, a man from Wales was not as lucky when he accidentally threw his hard drive containing the password to his cryptocurrency account, which was worth 8,000 Bitcoins with a current equivalent value of 227 million GBP.

IT engineer James Howells, 38, accidentally threw out his hard drive containing cryptocurrency 10 years ago. However, he was refused entry by the council at the Newport Household Waste Recycling Centre to try and find the hardware in 100,000 tonnes of waste. The facility had to be heavily guarded to deter hopefuls from trying to find it.