Blaze Recycling Changes Corporate Structure

Blaze Recycling & Metals LLC, headquartered in Norcross, Ga., recently reorganized its operations, creating a holding company. As part of the reorganization, the owners of Blaze Recycling & Meals have swapped their equity in the company to identical ownership interests in Blaze Metals LLC, the newly created holding company. With the move, Blaze Recycling & Metals becomes a wholly owned subsidiary of Blaze Metals LLC.

Following up on the change in corporate structure, the Norcross firm has acquired Ocala Recycling, an Ocala, Fla.-based scrap recycler. Ocala Recycling will also become a wholly owned subsidiary of Blaze Metals LLC. Richard and Michael Bianculli, the previous owners of Ocala Recycling, will remain with the company and have received equity in the holding company.

Ocala Recycling has been involved in the recycling business for more than 15 years. The company operates two scrap yards and two smaller feeder facilities in the Ocala area. The company also recently completed the development of an auto shredder that became operational in the third quarter of 2007.

Ocala has the capacity to process approximately 15,000 tons per month.

Craig Blase, co-president and co-CEO of Blaze Recycling says, "The Bianculli family has done an excellent job building their business, and their new shredder means the Blaze family of companies commands an even larger share of the scrap supply in the Southeast."

Blaze operates four scrap yards in Georgia and one in Alabama. In addition to the shredder being installed at its Phenix City plant, Blaze also operates a shredder at its Lawrenceville, Ga., yard.

Blase says that the Phenix City auto shredder should be operational by the end of August. That facility is a 5,000 horsepower, 98-inch machine. Along with the auto shredder, the company has focused a significant amount of its energy toward a large downstream system, which the company hopes will allow it to extract more material for recycling purposes. He estimates that roughly 75 percent of the material pulled out after shredding is ferrous scrap, with between 3-4 percent being nonferrous scrap metal and the remainder other materials, including non-recyclable waste.

With the addition of Ocala’s shredder, as well as another shredder that Blaze is installing at its Phenix City yard, Gary Blase, co-president and co-CEO of Blaze Recycling, says the company will have the capacity to shred and shear about 90,000 tons of material per month.

While the acquisition of the Ocala operations gives the company two operating shredders with a third shredder scheduled to be operational by the end of August, the company also has begun building its fourth shredder at a recent facility in Montgomery, Ala.

While the company is in negotiations with equipment vendors on the install, Craig Blase says that it is likely the shredder will follow a path similar to the one the company has taken at its other shredder yards. That shredder is expected to be operational by either late next year or early 2010.