Cousins wade through rubbish for 3 hours at Hougang block to find $900 gold anklet — and succeed
A man and his cousin spent three hours digging through a central bin centre in Hougang to locate a $900 anklet that got accidentally thrown away.
Stomper Shankar said the anklet belongs to his three-year-old daughter and was given to her by her grandparents at a birthday party on March 11.
"It was too loose for her," he told Stomp. "Somehow it ended up in the rubbish."
Shankar said he initially searched the entire house but could not find the anklet.
His daughter kept telling him it was in the rubbish "in her own gibberish language".
"I realised the grandparents had already thrown the rubbish into the common shared bin outside," he said.
Determined to recover the anklet, Shankar headed to FairPrice to buy gloves, a mask and garbage bags before starting the search with his cousin at around 11pm.
They spent over three hours going through bag after bag of rubbish at the bin centre.
"I was super exhausted and almost gave up," he said. "But my cousin pushed on and said we should check the last few bags."
Their persistence paid off.
"In the final bag we checked, we found the anklet," said Shankar.
"We went crazy. It all turned out to be worth it."
In an Instagram Story post about the ordeal, Shankar said the experience reminded him of the perseverance needed in business.
"We started our search at 11pm and by about 2.45am, we were down to the last two or three bags and about to give up and just throw away all the rubbish," he wrote.
However, he likened the search to the "ups and downs" they have faced in their entrepreneurial journey and continued digging through every bag until they found the gold anklet in the last one.
Shankar and his cousin have been running Singivor, a logistics business, for over seven years.
The Stomper said the industry has faced challenges in recent years due to rising diesel prices.
"We recently secured some good contracts, but diesel prices shot up because of the war in Iran," he said.
"The contracts were already signed for one to two years, so while costs increased, revenue has stayed the same."
Despite the challenges, Shankar said he hopes the business will continue to grow in the future.
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