All told, the rings are valued at close to $500,000. Though they are fully insured, the jewelry has so much sentimental value Carla Squitieri was willing to dig through mountains of trash to find them and get them back on her finger.

That’s how the couple ended up at a trash transfer station in O’Fallon, Mo., wearing white haz-mat suits (feeling like characters from “Ghostbusters”) and digging through an estimated eight or nine tons of trash. Hopelessness permeated the scene more than the stink of yesterday’s garbage.

It was an accomplishment just getting there, though.

Needle in a haystack

When customers call Meridian Waste Services about losing an item in the trash, the trucks usually have already dumped it in a landfill to be bulldozed and buried. Nine times out of 10, the item is never found, said Joe Evans, operations manager for Meridian.

Bernie Squitieri’s first call was to Meridian. The person on the other end of line told him there was nothing they could do, as did the supervisors he asked to speak with after that. Needle in a haystack, they told him.