File not found at path in laravel 5.2

I have an image within the public/badges directory called 1.png - I am trying to use the Storage library in laravel but keep getting the following error even though the file does exist at that location:

// Error

FileNotFoundException in Filesystem.php line 381:
File not found at path: Users/gk/Sites/mysite/public/badges/1.png

// Code

$filePath = 'badges/1.png';
$path = public_path()."/".$filePath
Storage::disk('local')->get($path);
dd($contents);

via Chebli Mohamed