NEWPORT City Council has said a hard drive which is said to be storing £4 million worth of digital currency will by now be buried under 25,000 cubic metres of rubbish.

James Howells, of Cromwell Road, Newport, accidentally threw away the drive, carrying the Bitcoin money, when he cleared out his office in the summer. He only realised what he had done a few days ago and went to the Docks Way tip to see what could be done.

The council said its retrieval is now practically impossible. A spokeswoman said: “Staff have assisted with the retrieval of items in certain circumstances but this would have to be done very quickly after it was thrown away.

"However, an item thrown away in the summer would be buried under 25,000 cubic metres of waste and earth. Newport City Council’s landfill site is operated under an environmental permit and is a secure site which is guarded at night. Members of the public are not allowed on the site for obvious health and safety reasons.”

Mr Howells, 28, who works as an IT technician, appeared on national news channels and radio stations yesterday as news spread of his extraordinary loss. He says he generated 7,500 Bitcoins, a digital currency, shortly after its launch in January 2009.

But after a week of his computer generating them, it started to overheat and he decided to turn it off. He put the hard drive, which stored the digital currency, in a drawer, forgot what was on it and threw it away. Bitcoin’s value has grown as companies such as Virgin have started to accept them as currency.