Waste expert says chances of UK man finding lost bitcoin fortune are 1 in 902 million

The notorious case of Brit James Howells' bitcoin fortune lost to landfill continues amid legal attempts to access the site or to acquire it outright. However, a UK waste management expert has thrown out the idea of a potential recovery, claiming the chances of finding the missing hard drive and retrieving the $669 million in bitcoin are near zero.

Howells, a computer engineer and resident of Newport, South Wales, believes his former partner mistakenly threw out the hard drive containing a Bitcoin wallet in 2013 and took legal action to access his local landfill or pursue £495 million ($609 million) in compensation from Newport City Council.

During a hearing in December, the court learned that Howells, an early Bitcoin adopter, mined over 7,500 BTC in 2009 when it held little value. However, Judge Andrew John Keyser KC dismissed the case on Jan. 9, stating that there were "no reasonable grounds" for bringing the claim and "no realistic prospect of succeeding if it went to trial" given the amount of time that had passed.

However, if the current owners are willing to negotiate at fair market rates, Howells and his investment partners would be interested in acquiring the Newport Docksway landfill site outright, he previously told The Block, without naming the partners. Howells said he had discussions with several interested parties in recent months, with "a few options on the table" and also wants to appeal Judge Keyser’s decision.

Even if Howells manages to access the site one way or another, his chances of finding the hard drive among the landfill's 1.4 million tonnes of garbage are just 1 in 902 million, according to UK firm Business Waste.

"Given that we send the equivalent weight of 82 million hard drives of waste to landfill each year, and Mr Howells lost his back in 2013, we can multiply that number by 11 to account for the years that have passed. This makes his chances of finding the hard drive 1 in 902,000,000 – equivalent to a 0.00000011% chance," Mark Hall, waste management expert at Business Waste told The Block.

When it comes to recovering the bitcoin itself, the chances are basically zero, according to Hall. "The hard drive has been exposed to the elements, leachate, heat and also been subject to compacting — we're highly doubtful it would be in any retrievable state, so we'd estimate a 0% chance of recovery," he said.

An enormous amount of waste, around 13.1 million tonnes, is sent to landfills every year in the UK, averaging 57,592 tonnes per landfill, according to Hall. "Assuming a hard drive weighs 700g — that's the equivalent weight of over 82 million hard drives, in just one year. It's like looking for a needle in a haystack," he said. 

While the Newport site holds more than 1.4 million tonnes of waste, Howells' own team of experts believes it has narrowed the location down to an area of 100,000 tonnes. However, this is still larger than Business Waste's estimate.

As the waste is compacted in layers and covered daily to prevent releasing foul odors and fumes, the hard drive is probably buried deep under many layers of earth, according to Hall, and unlikely to ever be recovered. 

"It's easy to see why Mr Howells is so consumed by the desire to find his missing hard drive. However, considering all the factors, it’s highly unlikely he'll ever be able to find his hard drive in a landfill," Hall said. "Mr Howells may be better off spending his time and energy elsewhere, the ongoing legal battle will no doubt be costly. Back in 2013, bitcoin was worth between $100 to $130 and has continued to rise sharply ever since, had Mr Howells simply bought more bitcoin when he realized the original hard drive was lost, he could still be sitting on a fortune." 

Would the hard drive even work if recovered?

Should Howells ever be granted permission to buy or search the landfill site, the hard drive will likely have been buried under mounds of waste for over 12 years and exposed to the elements, Hall said, bringing significant damage that might have rendered the device useless.

"Leachate, the toxic landfill liquids created by waste, and the heat created from gases like methane, could also contribute to rust, corrosion or even the melting of circuit boards and metal parts within the hard drive," he explained.  

Furthermore, the machinery used to compact waste in landfills means the device may have been crushed early on or under the pressure and weight of other waste over time. "While some professional data recovery experts may feel that the data could still be extracted, we would assume the device has been subject to extensive damage by this point," Hall said. 

Beyond the low chances of recovery, Hall also warned of the dangers of searching landfill sites in general.

Physical hazards include sharp or rusted objects and heavy machinery on site, while the engineered structure of landfills also poses risks such as shifting materials that can lead to landslides, collapses or being buried under waste, he said. Additionally, accumulated methane gas from decomposing waste can cause fires or explosions when disturbed, and exposure to toxic chemical gases from leachate is another serious risk, Hall explained.

Many landfills also contain hazardous materials like asbestos, construction waste and e-waste, which can leak harmful chemicals that can cause immediate harm, like skin burns or lead to long-term health issues such as lung disease and cancer. Landfills are also considered biohazards due to bacteria from rotting waste, medical products and pests that thrive in these environments, he added.

Howells 'profoundly rejects' the waste management expert's claims

"I profoundly reject the notion that the data is irretrievable," Howells told The Block in response to the waste management firm's claims, also rejecting the notion that he could not locate the hard drive with the budget and technology available to him.

Howells suggested that the waste management experts probably had no experience with AI object detection systems integrated with waste material flows, unlike his team, and have perhaps not utilized processes and methods that his experienced excavation partners, FLI Group, intend to apply. "I’m quite sure they are not high-level data recovery experts who have previously worked on NASA projects," he noted.

Elaborating on his reasoning, Howells argued many people are unaware of how data is stored on a hard drive and the factors that impact data recovery. For example, hard drive casing and internal components are irrelevant to the recovery process, and the crucial element is the platter inside the metal casing, which stores the data, Howells explained.

He also said that the size of the data he needs to recover is "minuscule." A 2009 Bitcoin wallet file was only 32KB, meaning the private key is probably only around 3-4KB in size, likely stored in one sector rather than spread across the entire disk, greatly improving the chances of a successful recovery. Furthermore, Howells said his team only needed to recover the first half of the private key, and the rest could be brute forced if necessary — also increasing the likelihood of success.

In terms of the condition of the hard drive, Howells claimed his team had closely studied the specific path it took at the Docksway landfill, confirming that at the time, there was no extraction or crushing process, and the waste was simply tipped out before being smoothed over and covered with dirt.

"A 1 in 902,000,000 chance is a number some clown has pulled from the backside of his arse — and he could not justify it in any way shape or form if he tried," Howells said. "Long story short, no-one can predict the exact condition of the HDD, tell your waste management experts I'll let them know when we find it, anything else is pure speculation."

Based on operational rules that require materials to be weighed in but not out of the facility, Howells also said there is no other possible location for the hard drive. Using the same analogy as Hall, Howells noted that his team is prepared to search every piece of hay, claiming they will eventually find the needle.

What's next in the quest to find the lost bitcoin treasure?

Regarding a potential acquisition, Howells previously explained the first step would be to determine if Newport City Council is willing to sell the site to an investment and maintenance group, then to discuss the possibility of Natural Resources Wales granting an excavation and reclamation permit before any potential deals and figures could be discussed in serious detail.

However, earlier this month, the BBC reported that the landfill site is expected to close in the 2025-2026 financial year, with Newport Council securing planning permission to convert part of the land to a solar farm.

Given this, and having appealed on Jan. 27, Howells still intends to pursue access, previously saying he was "very confident" in the case he had put forward and willing to take it as far as the Supreme Court.

If the potential options fall through, Howells also doesn't rule out launching a utility token or NFT related to the efforts, saying he is "pretty confident the crypto world would have my back."

Newport Council declined to comment on the story when contacted by The Block.