SA RECYCLING

SA Recycling is a Los Angeles–headquartered scrap-metal recycling and shredding company operating one of the largest networks of metal recovery yards in the western United States, with roughly 125 EPA-tracked facilities across California and adjoining states [source: https://echo.epa.gov/files/echodownloads/echo_exporter.zip] [source: https://www.sarecycling.com/]. The company is classified under NAICS 423930 (Recyclable Material Wholesalers) and operates two large terminals at the Port of Los Angeles plus more than a dozen Long Beach and South Bay yards [source: https://portoflosangeles.org/business/terminals/dry-bulk/sa-recycling] [source: https://www.sarecycling.com/yard/sa-recycling-long-beach/].

Federal EPA ECHO records flag this entity with sixty-seven non-compliance quarterly markers across the 125-facility footprint in the most recent two-year window — the highest count among non-shard-deduplicated rows in the WhatsMyESG seed [source: https://echo.epa.gov/files/echodownloads/echo_exporter.zip]. The most consequential federal enforcement event in the public record is a Clean Air Act Final Order (CAFO) signed in EPA Region 7, with the consent-agreement-and-final-order document hosted on EPA's published-document portal [source: https://www.epa.gov/system/files/documents/2023-08/SA-Recycling-CAFO.pdf]. Recycling Today and Waste360 separately documented an air-pollution settlement that followed a metal-shredder explosion at a California yard [source: https://www.recyclingtoday.com/news/sa-recycling-california-explosion-settl] [source: https://www.waste360.com/metals/sa-recycling-fined-for-pollution-violations].

Metal-shredding and scrap-recycling operations are characterized by a distinct emission and runoff profile relative to other heavy-industry sectors. SA Recycling's Long Beach, South Bay, and Port of Los Angeles operations sit within the South Coast Air Quality Management District's jurisdiction for stationary-source air emissions and within the Los Angeles Regional Water Quality Control Board's jurisdiction for stormwater and process-water discharge [source: https://www.sarecycling.com/yard/sa-recycling-long-beach/]. Each yard operates under combinations of South Coast AQMD permit-to-operate certificates, RCRA hazardous-waste-handler authorizations for the post-shredder fines and auto-shredder-residue (ASR) waste streams, and NPDES general-industrial stormwater permits.

The federal Clean Air Act Final Order (CAFO) on EPA's published-document portal documents the canonical record of the Region 7 enforcement matter — including the alleged violations, the agreed-upon civil penalty, and the injunctive-relief schedule [source: https://www.epa.gov/system/files/documents/2023-08/SA-Recycling-CAFO.pdf]. Recycling Today's coverage of an earlier California settlement documented a metal-shredding-related explosion event that drove a separate state air-pollution case to settlement [source: https://www.recyclingtoday.com/news/sa-recycling-california-explosion-settl]. Waste360 covered the broader pollution-violations enforcement footprint at SA Recycling, providing trade-press context on the multi-year regulatory exposure across the yard network [source: https://www.waste360.com/metals/sa-recycling-fined-for-pollution-violations].

SA Recycling's enforcement-history detail centers on two distinct vectors. The first is the federal Clean Air Act Final Order documented on EPA's August 2023 published-document portal, signed by EPA Region 7 enforcement staff [source: https://www.epa.gov/system/files/documents/2023-08/SA-Recycling-CAFO.pdf]. The CAFO format is EPA's negotiated-settlement instrument under the Consolidated Rules of Practice; it combines a complaint, a consent agreement, and a final order in a single document, making it a useful canonical record for researchers and journalists looking for primary-source enforcement documentation.

The second vector is the California state-level enforcement record at specific operating yards. Recycling Today's coverage of the metal-shredder explosion settlement documented an earlier matter where SA Recycling resolved an air-pollution case tied to a shredding-yard explosion event in California [source: https://www.recyclingtoday.com/news/sa-recycling-california-explosion-settl]. Waste360's published coverage frames the broader multi-year enforcement footprint at SA Recycling and the pattern of federal and state pollution-violations cases over time [source: https://www.waste360.com/metals/sa-recycling-fined-for-pollution-violations].

A separate EPA Region 7 enforcement matter at a different scrap-metal facility — EPA fined a St. Louis scrap-metal facility for alleged Clean Water Act violations — provides comparable-peer context for the regulatory regime that governs metal-recovery operators broadly [source: https://www.epa.gov/newsreleases/epa-fines-st-louis-scrap-metal-facility-al]. EPA's parallel enforcement action against two Northern California landfills for Clean Air Act violations illustrates the multi-pronged Region 9 enforcement focus across waste-handling and recycling-related sectors [source: https://www.epa.gov/newsreleases/epa-takes-action-against-two-northern-cali].

The broader Los Angeles-area lead-contamination context — particularly the long-running Exide battery-recycler cleanup zone documented by the Los Angeles Times — provides background on how metal-recycling-adjacent operations interact with longer-running soil and groundwater remediation efforts in the South Bay [source: https://www.latimes.com/environment/story/2026-04-11/lead-still-haunts-yard]. California's Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment publishes lead-contamination guidance and risk-assessment documentation that frames the regulatory baseline for metal-recovery operations in the state [source: https://oehha.ca.gov/sites/default/files/media/downloads/risk-assessment/fa].

SA Recycling's largest California operations include two Port of Los Angeles dry-bulk terminals and multiple Long Beach yards. The Port of Los Angeles' published terminal directory documents the SA Recycling dry-bulk terminal as a permanent fixture of the West Basin export-bulk-cargo network [source: https://portoflosangeles.org/business/terminals/dry-bulk/sa-recycling]. The 22606 S Alameda St yard at Long Beach, CA 90810 and the 482 Pier T Ave yard at Long Beach, CA 90802 are documented in the company's own yard-finder portal and on third-party mapping services [source: https://www.mapquest.com/us/california/sa-recycling-345425512] [source: https://www.mapquest.com/us/california/sa-recycling-351421906] [source: https://www.sarecycling.com/yard/sa-recycling-long-beach/].

Metal-shredding operations at this scale handle automobile bodies, white-goods (refrigerators, washers, dryers), commercial-and-industrial scrap, and post-consumer ferrous and non-ferrous scrap streams. The ASR (auto-shredder residue) byproduct is the dominant solid-waste stream and drives RCRA-handler authorization scope at each yard. Adjacent municipal and county facilities — including the Southeast Resource Recovery Facility (SERRF) operated by Los Angeles County Sanitation Districts — provide the integrated waste-and-recovery infrastructure context for SA Recycling's Long Beach operations [source: https://www.lacsd.org/services/solid-waste/facilities/southeast-resource-re]. Sims Metal's Los Angeles–Long Beach operations provide direct-peer context for the same regional scrap-metal-recovery market [source: https://simsrr.com/locations/los-angeles-california-longbeach/].

Pollutants of greatest concern at metal-shredding and scrap-recycling operations include: particulate matter from shredding-mill exhaust and yard-traffic dust; volatile organic compounds from residual fuel, lubricants, and plastics in shredded vehicles and appliances; heavy metals (lead, cadmium, mercury, chromium, zinc) liberated during shredding and concentrated in auto-shredder residue (ASR); polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) from residual capacitors and transformer oil in pre-1980 vehicles and equipment; and stormwater runoff carrying metals and particulates into receiving waters [source: https://www.epa.gov/system/files/documents/2023-08/SA-Recycling-CAFO.pdf].

The Los Angeles–South Bay lead-contamination history adds important regional context. The Los Angeles Times' April 2026 reporting on the Exide battery-recycler cleanup zone documented the multi-decade pattern of residential-yard contamination linked to historical metal-and-battery-recycling operations in the area [source: https://www.latimes.com/environment/story/2026-04-11/lead-still-haunts-yard]. The 2018 Industrial Lead Poisoning in Los Angeles paper preserved on the NCBI repository synthesizes the public-health-failure history across the Los Angeles industrial corridor [source: https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC5783279/]. Independent isotopic-evidence research published on the NCBI repository documents the chronic-lead-contamination pattern in the broader San Francisco Bay estuary system, providing methodological context for how metal-residual contamination is traced and attributed [source: https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC17174/]. California OEHHA's lead-contamination risk-assessment documentation provides the regulatory baseline for properties contaminated by lead [source: https://oehha.ca.gov/sites/default/files/media/downloads/risk-assessment/fa].

Within NAICS 423930 (Recyclable Material Wholesalers) SA Recycling is one of the largest U.S. scrap-metal-recovery operators, alongside Sims Metal Management's North America operations, Schnitzer Steel Industries (now Radius Recycling), and Commercial Metals Company's recycling division. Each operates a multi-yard regional model and faces the same federal Clean Air Act, Clean Water Act, and RCRA regulatory regimes plus state-level enforcement parallels. Sims Metal's Los Angeles–Long Beach yard cluster is the closest geographic peer to SA Recycling's South Bay footprint [source: https://simsrr.com/locations/los-angeles-california-longbeach/]. EPA's parallel St. Louis scrap-metal Clean Water Act enforcement matter illustrates the comparable-peer regulatory exposure across the broader sector [source: https://www.epa.gov/newsreleases/epa-fines-st-louis-scrap-metal-facility-al].

Material forward-looking risks for SA Recycling at the broader corporate level cluster on three vectors: continued federal and state air-and-water enforcement across the 125-facility footprint under tightening South Coast AQMD and California Air Resources Board emission limits; ongoing litigation and remediation exposure linked to ASR (auto-shredder residue) waste-handling, particularly in jurisdictions with stricter-than-federal hazardous-waste rules; and supply-chain-and-export-policy exposure on scrap-steel and non-ferrous-metal flows under evolving U.S. trade and tariff frameworks [source: https://www.epa.gov/system/files/documents/2023-08/SA-Recycling-CAFO.pdf] [source: https://www.recyclingtoday.com/news/sa-recycling-california-explosion-settl]. The longer-arc Los Angeles–South Bay lead-contamination history, while not directly attributable to SA Recycling, frames the regulatory and community-relations baseline that any large metals-recovery operator in the region must navigate [source: https://www.latimes.com/environment/story/2026-04-11/lead-still-haunts-yard].