Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: FRIDAY, June 4, 1993                   TAG: 9309240339
SECTION: EXTRA                    PAGE: 1   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: Wendi Gibson Richert
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Short

ALL IS NOT LOST

It's not exactly his job, after all, to retrieve their stuff from the mounds of recyclables dumped into the bins at the Roanoke Community Recycling Station off Wonju Street. But the Burns International security guard offers his services anyway.

Like the time a high school couple returned in a panic because the girlfriend accidentally dropped the boyfriend's class ring in the plastics bin.

``I go down there and open the [bin] door, and all that plastic came pouring out,'' Bonfanti recalls. ``They found it. She was just as happy as a bug in a rug.

``I wasn't too happy 'cause I had to pick up all that plastic.''

There's the time a lady climbed into the cardboard bin to dig for her father's ``important papers.'' Bonfanti, on patrol, was ready to squash the bin's contents when he spotted the woman buried in paper.

``The funny thing was, her father was standing there and he didn't say a word!'' They found the papers.

There's the gold-faced Pulsar watch, the family pictures and a heap of blank checks, all recovered.

Then, there are those items forever lost in recycling heaven: A $3,000 diamond ring, a hearing aid, the pearl and diamond earrings.

What's not gone, however, awaits a homecoming from a drawer inside Cycle Systems offices, where Bonfanti and other security guards hold what they find. Currently, about 75 keys, one glasses case, a Polaroid 3-D lens, and two BIG gold and silver chains.