Here is a great story that happened in Tel Aviv.

It seems that it happens often enough that someone in Tel Aviv might throw out in the garbage an envelope of money, or some valuable jewelry, by mistake of course. They call City Hall and I guess City Hall tries to help whenever possible locate the valuable items - whether in the garbage or at the main dump.

For what they say is the first time ever, someone accidentally threw his tefillin into the garbage. He called them for help to retrieve the lost tefillin.

The mistake happened when the fellow was going out to throw out his garbage on his way to davening. He had his tefillin in one hand, and the garbage in the other. Accidentally he threw his tefillin in the garbage can, and continued holding the garbage.

It does not seem like a big deal - just go through the garbage and look for the tefillin - they would be near the top of whatever is in there. The problem is that this was not ina normal garbage can, but in one of those massive cans that get buried in the ground with only the top exposed to the public. these cans are a few meters deep and are not accessible to the public. The garbage trucks that empty them use a sort of crane to lift them out of the ground and dump the contents into the truck, before replacing the can. This makes it difficult to retrieve a mistakenly disposed of item, like this fellow's tefillin.

When he called City Hall for assistance they immediately realized, even though they say they have never before experienced this, that the tefillin have tremendous value to the person and agreed to help right away. They sent the truck to lift the can out of the ground. After dumping the contents on the ground, they searched through the garbage for the tefillin, and sure enough found the tefillin. 
source: Mynet

Someone in Tel Aviv City Hall definitely has acquired a special zchus for himself with this assistance. 
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And who knows - maybe someone there, or someone else reading the news story, was or will be  impressed with how dearly this person holds his tefillin and will consider wearing tefillin once, or more often, or doing other mitzvos as a result.