Cited from endi.com "Plasmatech Caribbean Corporation plans to bring to Puerto Rico a technology that disintegrates the solid wastes with ionized gases (plasma) and intense heat to turn them into new products. That kind of recycling could be the answer to the waste management problem that will arise with the closing of garbage dumps in the Island." "The company plans to initiate a pilot operation in Barceloneta, where they will use the plasma technology to part of the waste generated by pharmaceuticals in the area at a cost of $40 million. The company expects to begin operations at the end of 2007." The plasma technology, applied only recently to waste management, uses closed tanks that don’t produce emissions, making it environmentally friendly. Plasmatech says that starting off pharmaceutical waste – with a high carbon, hydrogen and oxygen content- they can generate methanol, then propylene and ultimately, up to 4 million pounds of propane gas, available for sale. Although they will begin recycling pharmaceutical wastes, eventually they want to recycle solid wastes generated by municipalities in Puerto Rico. "Part of the proposal of Plasmatech Caribbean is to destine part of the operation to a research center in which students of the University of Puerto Rico in Mayagüez (UPRM) would develop new products from the gas that produced by the wastes disintegration."