{"id":208399,"date":"2026-06-02T13:30:23","date_gmt":"2026-06-02T13:30:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/208399\/"},"modified":"2026-06-02T13:30:23","modified_gmt":"2026-06-02T13:30:23","slug":"emr-fire-camden-to-revoke-business-license-councilman-says","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/208399\/","title":{"rendered":"EMR fire: Camden to revoke business license, councilman says"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>This story is part of the <a href=\"https:\/\/whyy.org\/whyy-news-climate-desk\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">WHYY News Climate Desk<\/a>, bringing you news and solutions for our changing region.\n<\/p>\n<p>From the Poconos to the Jersey Shore to the mouth of the Delaware Bay, what do you want to know about climate change? What would you like us to cover? <a href=\"#Section1\">Get in touch<\/a>.\n<\/p>\n<p>Camden City Councilmember <a href=\"https:\/\/whyy.org\/articles\/arthur-barclay-city-council-pretrial-hit-pedestrian\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Arthur Barclay <\/a>told a room full of residents and advocates Monday evening that the city of Camden plans to revoke a business license held by the embattled scrap metal recycler EMR.\n<\/p>\n<p>The statement comes days after a two-alarm fire on Friday at the company\u2019s facility along the Delaware River where it shreds old appliances, junk cars, construction materials and other scrap metal into small pieces that can be remelted.\n<\/p>\n<p>Friday\u2019s fire prompted city, county and state elected officials to call on EMR to fully cease operations in Camden.\n  <\/p>\n<p>More than a dozen fires have occurred at EMR\u2019s facilities in Camden over the last five years, <a href=\"https:\/\/whyy.org\/articles\/new-jersey-sues-emr-scrapyard\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">according to a lawsuit<\/a> filed by the New Jersey Office of the Attorney General earlier this year.\n<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI stand by my decision in permanently shutting them down,\u201d Barclay said Monday at a community meeting held at the Center for Environmental Transformation, a nonprofit in the Waterfront South neighborhood located just around 2,000 feet from the shredder facility.\n<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThat business license will be revoked tomorrow,\u201d he said.\n<\/p>\n<p>\u201cLike, tomorrow, tomorrow?\u201d asked resident Kristin Schrum, who lives near the facility.\n<\/p>\n<p>\u201cYes,\u201d Barclay said.\n<\/p>\n<p>Joe Balzano, EMR USA CEO, wrote in a text message Monday evening that the company is currently reviewing its options and considering how best to respond.\n<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe believe that the decision to revoke our license does not reflect the progress we\u2019ve made or our commitment under our MOU to the community,\u201d he wrote.<br \/>\n<img fetchpriority=\"high\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-743353\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/06-01-2026-k-paynter-EMR-community-meeting-2.jpg\" alt=\"Camden, N.J. City Council Vice President Arthur Barclay said that the city was planning to revoke the business license\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\"  \/>Camden, N.J. City Council Vice President Arthur Barclay said that the city was planning to revoke the business license of European Metal Recycling after over a dozen fires in the past 5 years caused outrage in residents at a community meeting at the Center for Environmental Transformation on June 1, 2026. (Kimberly Paynter\/WHYY)\n        <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"This story is part of the WHYY News Climate Desk, bringing you news and solutions for our changing&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":208400,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[71318,69,71,70,5206],"class_list":["post-208399","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-philadelphia","tag-environmental-impacts-of-a-scrapyard-loom-in-camden","tag-philadelphia","tag-philadelphia-headlines","tag-philadelphia-news","tag-whyy-news-climate-desk"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/208399","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=208399"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/208399\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/208400"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=208399"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=208399"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=208399"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}