Trash or treasure: Argentines strike out on their own with new technology, from the stinky to the delicious

A noisy garbage truck reminds you to take out the trash. A foul smell is all the truck leaves behind. It's pretty much the same worldwide, although in Quilmes, Argentina, things do smell a little nicer.

Transportes Unidos de Quilmes, the waste-collection company in the city located on the outskirts of Buenos Aires, has equipped its fleet with technology from Argentina's Ecologic Motor, a producer of environmental-friendly motors and buses, for decontaminating and deodorizing rubbish as collectors toss it in. It does so by treating the waste with ozone, a gaseous form of oxygen that kills bacteria and odors 3,000 times faster than chlorine, leaving behind the smell of a fresh spring rain.

Nice-smelling trash? That's the Argentine way. Argentine inventions range from the ballpoint pen to the disposable syringe, urban bus service and the first system for making animated movies.

In terms of the number of inventors-to-population, Argentina ranks 14th in the world--the highest in Latin America--with 3,000, according to the Argentine Association of Inventors (AAI), an industry group. Despite a drop in patents, the economic crisis of the past few years has spurred invention to meet demand for lower-priced technology. In the 1990s, a strong domestic currency--it was pegged one-for-one with the U.S. dollar--made it cheaper to import than produce locally. Now with the peso 70% weaker, foreign technology is out of reach. Hence, there is a market for homegrown products, sold cheaper in dollar terms than imports because of low labor costs. Take Matriceria Estmar, a 33-year-old company that manufactures molds for car-body and engine components. This year, it began selling a machine that semi-automates the production of empanadas, a meat pie made by hand since colonial times.

The Empamec M2000, its top machine, uses a conveyor-belt system. As it rotates, one worker lays dough on a mold, and another adds a savory filling. The mold clamps shut, sealing the meat pie. A third operator takes it off. The machine cranks out 2,000 beef, chicken and other varieties of empanada an hour, nearly seven times more than the three people could do manually.

The machine sells for US$12,500, a sixth of the cost of an imported machine, says Esteban Porco, a partner in the company.

What's more, foreign machines don't work well for empanadas, he says. They are designed for jelly and other fillings, not chunks of beef and chicken, hard-boiled eggs and olives. Estmar's machine, too, can brand and code empanadas, doing away with a system of shapes and notches in the crust to identify fillings.

Estmar is supplying a growing industry. Over the past five years, empanada chains have sprung up around the country and now are venturing abroad. A main reason is a low-budget eating habit, a result of the economic crisis. Three of them, a filling lunch, cost $1.

In its first months, Estmar sold nine machines, including one to also El Gaucho Food in Miami. Inquiries have also come from Colombia. The invention now generates half its revenue. At the same time, diversification helps. "The volatility of the automobile industry makes it hard to plan business. The food industry is more stable," says Porco.