A Sunshine Coast man who accidentally threw $50,000 worth of gold jewellery into the rubbish says he felt sick when he realised what he had done.

The Caloundra man, who has given his name as Geoffrey, had hidden his wife's jewellery in three garbage bags in an attempt to fool potential robbers.

But the bags were inadvertently thrown out with the rubbish last week.

Geoffrey says he immediately contacted the Sunshine Coast Council in an attempt to track down the garbage bags.

"My wife rang me up to ask me where I'd put the rubbish and then [the] realisation I'd thrown it out - sick feeling and everything.

"I rang the council up, lovely, young, very sympathetic, [and they] said 'I'm sorry - there's just nothing we can do. It has been taken to Nambour'.

"If she can tell me roughly where it is, I'll come down with a metal detector.

"From what I've been told, we're never going to find them. I'm hoping one of the council workers may come across it, and I'm sure they'll do the right thing and we'll all have a happy ending."

Little hope

Sunshine Coast Regional Council spokesman Gary Reeve says there is little hope of finding the lost gold because officers were not notified immediately.

"The biggest difficulty we have is that we're not sure which tip it's gone to," he said.

"If it goes to the Caloundra tip, that receives 1,400 tonnes of waste a week - that's compacted by a 52-tonne machine.

"It could be anywhere in that tip.

"If we'd been contacted the day it happened, we'd stand a chance.

"But whilst my heart goes out to Geoff, it's worse than a needle in a haystack situation."

The council's waste manager Wayne Schaffer says the man is welcome to search the tip for the lost gold but thinks he will be wasting his time.

"He can go there to the landfill, but the rubbish isn't going to be on the surface," Mr Schaffer said.

"As I said to go down two metres deep, that's been compacted by a landfill compactor, you know, the chances of him finding this jewellery is nil. It's a huge job, it would take weeks and weeks."