Woman finds her $20,000 earrings in landfill

Couple and city employees find the diamonds in haystack of trash

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updated 8:50 p.m. ET July 19, 2008

NEW YORK - Diamonds in the rough? Try a $20,000 pair of the glittering gems in a reeking truckload of trash.

A Staten Island jeweler has gotten her 3-carat diamond earrings back after she, her husband and city sanitation employees sorted through a smelly heap of garbage. The studs were in a small jar of cleaning solution, which a worker at the couple's jewelry store had accidentally thrown away.

The earrings were recovered Thursday at the former Fresh Kills landfill, where trash is compacted and shipped out of state.

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Owner Haya Sharon is calls the find "a miracle." The earrings were an anniversary gift from her husband.

Sanitation Department spokesman Keith Mellis says engagement rings and other precious possessions have been plucked from piles of city garbage.