Recycling Today archives
A fire at a metal shredding and recycling facility in Tampa, Florida, took more than 14 hours to contain and resulted in trips to the hospital for two fire fighters, according to local reports.
A report from WTSP-TV in Tampa says the incident was a three-alarm scrap metal fire that broke out at Liberty Recycle in Tampa. (Google lists the company name at the same address as Liberty Recycling.)
The report also refers to "large plumes of black smoke” and says the fire was reported the morning of Aug. 21.
Although the facility does not appear on the 2024 edition of Recycling Today’s Auto Shredder List & Map, a WTSP-TV report and a video clip obtained by Recycling Today shows a shredding plant setup and stockpiles typical of auto shredding installations.
A 2018 report from Fastmarkets indicates the Liberty Steel business unit of the United Kingdom-based GFG Alliance purchased a Tampa location from Export Metals LLC.
The Liberty Steel website currently does not list a Tampa recycling yard location, although a Tampa recycling location is listed on the website of InfraBuild, a GFG Alliance spinoff company based in Australia. According to a Recycling Today source, the Tampa yard previously was sold by Liberty Steel to InfraBuild.
While the fire may no longer directly impact Liberty Steel and the GFG Alliance, the incident occurs on the same day those companies received bad news in the form of a court ruling in London.
In the U.K,, a court placed Liberty Speciality Steel UK Ltd. into compulsory liquidation, ruling in favor of a measure favored by GFG creditors and the British government. Those assets include a recycled-content electric arc furnace steel mill.