A girl has been reunited with the treasured iPad her younger brother threw in the bin after workers sifted through 150 tonnes of rubbish to find it.
Zoey Kerr, seven, was devastated when her four-year-old brother Riley confessed he had thrown away the device she had been given for Christmas.
Her mother Gillian contacted the council to report the loss but feared the family would never see the iPad again.
However, a team at the Viridor waste site in Dunbar, East Lothian, found the device in a shed housing 150 tonnes of rubbish.
The family, who live in Eyemouth in the Borders, were moving house when they realised Zoey did not have her iPad.
Mrs Kerr, 28, said: "I said to her brother Riley 'Do you know where your sister's iPad is?' And in a very matter-of-fact manner, he told me 'Yes, in the bin'. When I asked why, he just said: 'Because she annoyed me'.
"When I reported it to the council and at the Eyemouth recycling centre, I really didn't think we'd see it again.
"But the Viridor team took the time to find out where we lived to narrow down where it might be and then to search through the rubbish to find it. It has meant so much to our seven-year-old."
Nine-year-old Jamie had been sharing his iPad with her sister after hers was lost last month.
The iPad was recovered from Viridor's new £177 million energy recovery facility.
Barry Falgate, Viridor Dunbar unit manager, said: "Six men worked through their break to find the iPad and they were thrilled to be successful."
Zoey, who turned seven on March 13, wrote a thank you letter and sent Riley's £20 Christmas money along with a box of chocolates to the team who found the iPad.
The Viridor workers sent the £20 back to the little girl but enjoyed the chocolates.
In a letter to Zoey, Chris Loughlin, chief executive of Pennon, the company which owns Viridor, said: "When we heard what happened to your iPad we all wanted to find it for you. So, we were very happy when we found it. I'm very pleased it has now made it back home to you where it belongs.
"I have included a voucher for you for iTunes as a thank you for your kind letter. I hope you can use this to download some of your favourite songs on to your iPad."
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here