A human error at the Mainguard Street branch of the Bank of Ireland in Galway city resulted in around €18,000 mistakenly thrown into the rubbish last week.
On discovering the money was missing, the bank immediately alerted City Bin Company before lunchtime on Tuesday. Its head office set about "quarantining" the truck which had picked up the cash.
The contents of the lorry were emptied at the company's new waste recovery facility at Oranmore. It took four bank staff and three bin men around four hours to search through the rubbish before they found what was believed to be £12,000 sterling, worth about €18,000, neatly tied into cash bundles.
"It was human error. It was a simple enough error that was thankfully happily resolved," branch manager Mr Pat Bolger said. "It's a busy enough spot here. An item went out mistakenly. Errors do happen and it was great to get it back. All credit to City Bin who were very helpful," he added.
General manager of City Bin Company, Mr Niall Killilea, said while the job was not difficult it certainly was not clean.
It is not the first time City Bin has recovered valuable goods. In 2001, a precious set of Claddagh rings worth £6,000 was saved minutes before they were to be compressed.