Empire Tire of Edgewater LLC and McGee Tire are located in the Orlando area.

Liberty Tire Recycling, Pittsburgh, has acquired Empire Tire of Edgewater LLC in Orlando, Florida, and McGee Tire, based in Apopka, Florida.

The acquisition of the two companies, which collect, grade, and haul scrap tires, will expand Liberty’s footprint in the state into the growing central Florida market. Liberty adds it will build on the two companies’ success by bringing its “industry-leading approach to collections, processing, and recycling of end-of-life tires.”

Liberty CEO Thomas Womble, Liberty says both acquisitions are great companies that have served their clients and employees well. “This is a real opportunity for Liberty and central Florida to leverage our scale and financial position to expand operations, create new jobs, improve collections and recycling efforts, and provide sustainable solutions for end-of-life tires,” he says.

According to Liberty, Empire Tire is the largest Orlando-area scrap tire collector, and McGee Tire is an Orlando-area route collection business. Combined, the two companies have decades of experience in central Florida’s scrap tire market. Empire Tire & Wheel retail stores will continue to operate under their existing ownership.

“My brother and I worked hard for over 20 years in this business,” McGee Tire founder Jesse McGee says. “We’d worked with Liberty in the past and knew them to be good operators, but what impressed me was their commitment to their employees. They care about people like we do.”

Liberty says the acquisitions will allow it to handle additional collections and processing capacity in the growing Florida market and move end-of-life tire materials into higher-value markets more efficiently. The company claims America’s scrap tire generation closely mirrors its population, with an estimated 1 million scrap tires generated annually for every million people.

“Adding Empire and McGee to the Liberty team has created a truly world-class operation here in Florida,” Liberty Regional Vice President David Cannon says. “We are going to be able to keep hundreds of thousands of tires out of Florida landfills each year by finding more opportunities for reuse and recycling, all while optimizing our route collections and customer service.”

Liberty is a full-service tire collection, processing, and manufacturing company. Each year, the company says all types of tires are collected from more than 36,700 retail locations across North America and processed at one of its 54 locations throughout the U.S. and western Canada. Over the last decade, the company claims it has collected more than 1.56 billion tires.

Through reclamation and recycling efforts, Liberty repurposes end-of-life tires into products for both the commercial and retail sectors. Utilizing recycled rubber, Liberty manufactures more than 100 products sold in North America at more than 10,000 retail and commercial locations.