Some Camden residents at the City Council meeting on April 8, 2025
By Sophia Schmidt, WHYY News, September 11, 2026
U.S. Rep. Donald Norcross is pushing a bill he says could help stop the recurring fires at a scrap metal recycling company in Camden.
Norcross, a Democrat who represents the city in Congress, introduced a bill last fall that would incentivize the detection and recycling of highly flammable lithium-ion batteries.
EMR, a multinational scrap metal recycling company with its U.S. headquarters and several industrial sites in Camden, has blamed the batteries as the primary driver of fires at its junkyards.
“It certainly has become something that really doesn’t leave my mind, ever,” EMR USA CEO Joe Balzano said at a press conference promoting Norcross’ bill Thursday at EMR’s metal shredding facility in the Waterfront South neighborhood.
The company’s five facilities in Camden have been the site of 14 major fires since 2020, according to a lawsuit filed by the state against the company earlier this year. Some of these fires have sent dangerous pollution into Waterfront South, where the majority of residents are Black or Hispanic. Residents have evacuated their homes during the fires and been left with lingering psychological distress and concerns about their health.
Lithium-ion batteries are present in consumer products such as smartphones and electric bikes. They are banned at EMR’s junkyards, but the company says they are often delivered anyway and are difficult to detect.
The tax credit would partially reimburse recycling companies for the cost of battery detectors and would tax battery manufacturers. It would also create a lithium battery recycling grant program that would give funds to facilities that collect and recycle the batteries.
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