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James Howells, the IT laborer who unwittingly disposed of a hard drive containing what is currently valued at around $75 million worth of bitcoin, knows where the missing hard drive is, but he can’t try to recover it. That’s because the city in which the fortune is covered won’t enable him to delve into the landfill.

The missing hard drive is sitting somewhere under 200,000 tons of junk in a Newport, South Wales landfill.

Howells used an old PC to mine a sum of 7,500 bitcoins in 2009. Presently, he sold the parts to the Dell M1710 on eBay after his girlfriend complained about the mining’s clamor. He kept the hard drive in a cabinet, just in case the bitcoins increased in esteem. However, he overlooked the hard drive, and after four years, he disposed of it with the trash.

Howells has not been able to get consent from city chamber to dig into the landfill to recover the hard drive. Doing as such would require particular hardware that is typically used as a part of criminal examinations.

He was informed that a situation where even the police needed to go digging would require a group of 15, incorporating diggers with compulsory personal protection equipment. He couldn’t reserve such an operation, so he set up a wallet for donations:

https://twitter.com/howelzy/status/405690499593699328

City Council Denies Permission:

A Newport City Council representative said somebody has reached them in the past about recovering IT equipment containing bitcoins, but the chamber has shied away because of the expenses of uncovering the landfill and treating the trash, as per Wired. Such an exertion would cost millions and be environmentally destructive, with no assurance that a working drive would be recuperated. Around 50,000 tons of waste is added to the landfill every year.

A city chamber representative said the drive has likely experienced genuine galvanic corrosion from landfill leachates and gases. The landfill isn’t open to the public use.

Howells has the public address for his bitcoin, so he knows the bitcoins have not been moved. Since the information is encrypted, any individual who finds the hard drive would require Howells’ assistance to get to it.

Story credits: ccn.com

Image: Google images