When Steve Van Ysseldyk pledged 26 years ago to honour and cherish his wife Jeannine for better or for worse, he didn’t imagine “for worse” would include digging through compost at the dump looking for her lost wedding rings.
But it did. And more importantly, he found them — in only an hour, thanks to a little help.
“You know, it stunk, slimy,” Steve told Global News.
“You know, I would do anything to find them, make sure that you know, she’s happy.”
Talk about true love.
This is BC: The Ring Finder
The Van Ysseldyks’ adventure began last Wednesday, when the couple went out to see a movie.
They got a free refill of very buttery popcorn for their daughter on the way out, but spilled the bag in the front yard. Jeannine scooped up the bits and threw it all in the compost.
You can guess what happened next.
The next day, as the couple was out for dinner, Jeannine noticed the rings — an anniversary band and a diamond solitaire — were gone.
“Frantic. I was upset, and I actually had to get up and leave the restaurant,” she said.
“We rushed home … I called my daughter, asked her to check the house to see if she could find them anywhere. And she could not.”
After a review of the couple’s security cameras, they developed a working theory. The layered butter in the popcorn bag had lubricated the rings to slip off as Jeannine scooped the popcorn off the lawn.
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The compost had already been picked up — leaving Steve with one less than appetizing option.
“So I came to the dump on Friday morning and asked if I could sift through the compost pile,” he said.
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He knew exactly what he was looking for: the Cineplex popcorn bag and a Tim Hortons Timbit box and a recognizable compost bag.
“He looked at me like I was crazy,” he said.
Denny Webster, who owns the facility, told Global News that on any other day, he likely would have turned Steve away, but as luck would have it, the facility had only received three truckloads on Thursday and he just couldn’t say no.
“It wasn’t much of a sales pitch for me to be optimistic of finding anything, until he told me there was popcorn and a Tim Hortons box, and he looked pretty desperate,” he said.
“So I thought, well, let’s go up and I’ll give you an hour of my time and see what we can find, not expecting to find anything, hopefully just so he could go home and tell his wife he put in an honest effort.”
The duo worked out a system with Denny using an excavator to pull out and spread a scoop at a time and Steve going through it with a shovel.
After about 40 minutes, they hit the jackpot: the popcorn bag turned up, and with it, the first ring.
“I called my wife, she was at Princess Auto buying a metal detector just in case,” Steve said.
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Not long afterward, they found another patch of popcorn and the other ring.
“Amazing. I can’t believe he did it. I’m glad he did it. I’m still shocked they’re on my finger, but I know he’d do it again and again for me, if he had to,” Jeannine said.
“He loves me that much that he would actually go into that pile and search.”
Steve gives full credit to Webster for helping him find the rings.
He said the facility owner refused to accept the majority of a cash reward for the help, asking instead for a social media shout-out for the Mission compost.
“Sometimes people have to do good things for no money, and he forced me to take some money,” Webster said.
Webster added that the rings would have been impossible to find if another load had arrived or the bags had more time to compost.
Even so, he said the chances of the recovery were beyond slim.
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“I would have said none, but we proved that wrong so very close to none,” he said, adding he was shocked when the first one turned up.
“Then I thought maybe he stood a chance, and maybe he’s not as crazy as I thought.”
The Van Ysseldyks remain beyond grateful to Webster, describing him as a “wonderful person.”
Jeannine, meanwhile, plans to keep a close eye on the jewelry going forward.
“It’s such sentimental value. They’re your wedding rings on your finger every day, 24 hours a day,” she said.
“I was so so devastated when they were lost, and I didn’t sleep all night — it was not a great feeling, whatsoever.”
© 2025 Global News, a division of Corus Entertainment Inc.
