Ananova:

Refuse authorities in West Sussex have failed to locate an elderly lady's life savings after she accidentally threw £12,000 out with the rubbish.

The woman, who lives in Worthing but hasn't been named, kept the bundle of £50 notes in a blue reusable shopping bag, according to the Daily Telegraph.

However, when she inadvertently popped the cash into her wheelie bin, it promptly ended up at a landfill site near Horsham, where it's now lost under hundreds of tons of waste.

A team of 14 binmen delved unsuccessfully through tons of rubbish in search of the bag, but waste strategy manager Paul Willis concluded, "Unfortunately, there is no hope - the chances of finding it at landfill are zilch."

Willis also advised against going to search for the cash at the site, which receives around 100 tons of rubbish a day. "There is security and people won't be able to get past, " he warned. "There is also lots of heavy, dangerous machinery."