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The saga began last February when the Philippine Bureau of Customs inspected a batch of 50 Canadian shipping containers declared to contain “scrap plastic materials for recycling,” and instead found them packed with household garbage, soggy paper and even used adult diapers.

Declaring the shipment “junk materials [that] could pose biohazard risks,” officials impounded the shipment at Manila International Container Terminal.

The containers, packed with waste sourced from the Vancouver area, were sent by Chronic Inc., a Whitby, Ont.-based plastics exporter owned by Jim Makris.

The telephone numbers for the company appear to have been disconnected, but in February, Mr. Makris spoke to the Toronto Star by phone about the Philippine seizure.

“It’s the stupidest thing I’ve heard of in my entire life,” he said, adding that “anyone with a brain” would know it is cheaper to dump garbage in Canada than ship it across the Pacific Ocean.

Noting that he had exported similar shipments without incident, the exporter said he suspected he was being punished for failing to furnish a payoff.

As of mid-October, Chronic Inc. had not removed the containers and appears to have no plans to do so.

Meanwhile, after months of curdling in the tropical Manila weather, the shipment’s contents are reportedly in the later stages of decomposition, and have begun to leak “garbage juice.”

According to the estimates of one Philippine political party, they have cost the government more than $1.5-million in storage fees to date at the crowded container terminal.