Our story
Community Wood Recycling has developed into the country’s leading social and environmental social enterprise network
How it started
Founder Richard Mehmed first realised the potential of waste wood in 1998 when he was building a playhouse for his daughter. He spotted some ideal wooden sheets piled outside a local factory, and when he asked if he could take a couple of them for his playhouse he was shocked to find the pile was just a fraction of the excess wooden packaging they had waiting to be incinerated. Richard came up with a plan to cycle more wood out of the waste stream, and the Brighton and Hove Wood Recycling Project was born.
Since then
Thanks to the success of the Brighton project, funding was secured to franchise the model elsewhere and the National Community Wood Recycling Project was founded in 2003. The National Builders Collection Scheme was set up to market the service to building companies in 2010, allowing the NCWRP to become self-funding and offer support to enterprises without the need for grants or fundraising. There are currently 28 enterprises operating across the country, collectively forming Community Wood Recycling and collecting around 20,000 tonnes of wood every year.
Our wood recycling network creates sustainable jobs
The work we do creates jobs, training and volunteering opportunities for local people, particularly those who might find it difficult to get into or back to employment or who have been excluded from the workforce. We work with former offenders, those with mental health problems, people in recovery from addiction and young people who have never had a job.
We are committed to the re-use of waste timber
We believe that there is a better alternative than the chipper for the 4.5 million tonnes of waste wood the country creates every year. By sorting the timber for reuse we are working with commercial partners and local communities to build a circular economy.
Our Journey
At a time when only 2% of waste wood is being recycled (with the rest ending up in landfill producing the potent greenhouse gas methane), Richard Mehmed founds Brighton and Hove Wood Recycling Project (later to be known as The Woodstore), the country’s first community wood recycling social enterprise. The project quickly attracts media attention, and more volunteers become involved.
Richard realises that many of them have faced challenges and that volunteering in a community wood recycling project can be a path back to work and self-confidence. This leads to the second part of the recycling project’s mission – to give opportunities to disadvantaged people and help them back into employment.
Brighton and Hove Wood Recycling Project wins the newly inaugurated National Social Enterprise of the Year Award. Interest in this new model grows, and Richard is contacted by people all over the country wanting to set up similar projects. With funding from WRAP and the Esmee Fairburn Foundation, he launches the National Community Wood Recycling Project (NCWRP) to franchise the model nationwide.
The model pioneered in Brighton finds a home in Bristol. Meanwhile at the national office Operating Guides and Training Modules are developed to ensure that the lessons learned from the Brighton enterprise are passed on.
Reseiclo Wood Recycling becomes the first community wood recycling enterprise in Wales, trading from Newport near Cardiff.
The wood recycling model finds a home in the countryside, when a former milking shed near the Castle Coombe racing circuit is transformed into a home for reclaimed timber.
Serving the Oxford area, the project soon outgrows their initial premises and moves to Abingdon, where they continue to work with volunteers and champion the therapeutic powers of working with wood.
The Woodhouse opens in Preston, an initiative by local charity Integrate. Supporting adults with learning disabilities, it provides training, employment and importantly allows them to live their life to the full in their local community.
The Aldingbourne Trust adds a Community Wood Recycling service to their family of social businesses at the scenic Aldingbourne Country Centre, as part of their mission to provide opportunities for people with autism or learning disability.
Serving the town of Weston Super Mare, from the outset, the project offers work-based training to local people whose face challenges in their lives. Many early volunteers go on to become long term members of staff.
After three years of working from home or in temporary spaces, the NCWRP is able to open a permanent national office in Brighton.
Based in the countryside near Haywards Heath, the project promotes volunteering with wood in an outdoor setting to local groups including people with learning difficulties.
Community Wood Recycling finds its first home in Scotland. Located on the North bank of the River Clyde on land once occupied by the Swan Hunter shipyard, the project soon develops the strong sense of community and purpose that brings everyone together, and makes it a special place.
This Essex-based project provides wood waste collections in London from their home by the River Rodding in Essex.
St Albans Wood Recycling goes on to become one of the network’s largest wood collectors, collecting around 2,000 tonnes of wood from north London building projects each year.
The project is based in High Wycombe, famous for its history of wooden chair making
In response to increasing standards for environmental and waste safeguards amongst our clients, we start producing reports showing not only the quantity of waste collected from each site but what it was used for.
As well as topping the recently compiled RBS SE100 (now NatWest SE100) fastest growing social enterprise index, we are also narrowly pipped to the post of being named the inaugural RBS SE100 growth champion at a prestigious awards ceremony in London.
JERICHO is a charity offering work and training opportunities to people in the Birmingham area struggling with issues including homelessness, mental ill health, addiction, disability, modern slavery, and social exclusion through a range of social businesses, such as building, laundry, cleaning, refurbishment, catering, and of course community wood recycling via The Wood Shack.
The NCWRP’s work is covered in a three page spread in the Summer edition of Permaculture Magazine. The feature leads to calls from several potential new entrepreneurs who are interested in setting up community wood recycling enterprises in their areas.
NCWRP’s Richard Mehmed is interviewed by the international news organisation Al Jazeera at the Brighton Woodstore as part of a new ecology news segment for their English language broadcasting, broadcast in June to their viewership of over 200 million.
Serving the Medway towns and north Kent, the team at Roots work closely with the local community, from making planters to giving opportunities to people with learning disabilities.
Nesta’s Waste Reduction Challenge Prize offers a prize for the innovation that achieved the biggest measurable reduction in waste, by providing new opportunities for communities to come together to give time, skills and resources.
EMERGE 3Rs operates several recycling and reuse projects in Greater Manchester, including the Touch Wood community wood recycling enterprise and the FareShare community food partnership.
Based in Derby, they build up a reputation for products, from tables to mud kitchens.
The network comes together to celebrate our tenth birthday, and our local MP is guest of honour
The founders of the project are avid sailors, sailing mainly traditional gaff rigged boats. While searching for timber for winter maintenance of one of these boats, they find out about community wood recycling and are inspired to set up a project in Southampton.
Just Wood Leicestershire is the first project in our network to be led and run by an all female team.
The National Community Wood Recycling Project bands together with the local enterprises it helped create and foster to form Community Wood Recycling, a recycling network with the goal of providing collection coverage and wood supply across the country using the community wood recycling model.
Our Hull-based wood recyclers serve the Humber region, and have gone on to become part of the Dove House Hospice family, reclaiming timber to support a vital community service.
A former council depot in the Walker area is given new life as a sustainable, vibrant space which brings together the local community.
A teepee playhouse designed and built from reclaimed wood by Just Wood Leicestershire is part of the garden makeover on the ITV television programme ‘Love Your Garden’ starring Alan Titchmarsh.
The Community Wood Recycling model gives one of the employees at our South London enterprise the chance to start his own social enterprise.
To commemorate our long term partners Wates being awarded The Queens Award for Enterprise (Sustainable Development), Community Wood Recycling Founder and Managing Director Richard Mehmed is presented to Her Royal Highness Anne, Princess Royal, and gives her a collection of Christmas decorations made by Humber Wood Recycling and Brighton and Hove Wood Recycling from wood collected from Wates sites.
This certifies our conformity with the PAS 91 standard for construction procurement.
They quickly develop a loyal following of fans of their reclaimed timber on social media.
Social Enterprise UK and the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport call on top UK businesses to collectively spend £1 billion with social enterprises through their procurement. Community Wood Recycling is a key social enterprise partner for several top builders.
Richard’s appointment shows international recognition of Community Wood Recycling as an exemplar of social enterprise, as well as demonstrating his commitment to disseminating any lessons learned for the betterment of social business across Europe.
The All Saints Action Network, working to regenerate a disadvantaged area of Wolverhampton, chooses wood recycling as a means of delivering change through social enterprise.
This Basildon based project addresses the barriers to people moving out of poverty by offering training, mentoring and life and money management skills.
They quickly win praise for their initiatives to combat loneliness and isolation through bringing people together to work with wood.
From their Croydon base Solo Wood Recycling become involved in a range of projects from building timber structures for a show garden at the Hampden Court Flower Show to working with local school children.
Our second project in Scotland brings wood recycling to the nation’s capital with support from Zero Waste Scotland, and new opportunities for the clients of leading charity Move On Scotland.
A Woking-based group seeking to tackle financial exclusion and joblessness turn a former Jobcentre into an Aladdin’s cave of reclaimed timber.
While visiting EMERGE to recognise the Manchester-based social enterprise’s work supplying food to local people during the coronavirus crisis, Duke and Duchess of Cambridge are presented with a herb planter made by our wood recyclers
To stay at the forefront of high-efficiency, low-waste recycling, Community Wood Recycling develops a Waste Transfer Note management app that lets our collectors log transfers as they take place.
Process CIC is a subsidiary service to ensure that all staff and volunteers in the Community Wood Recycling network have access to mental health support. Their first act is to compile a report, Mental Health and Wellbeing Provision in the Construction Industry, to examine the extent to which existing mental health support is meeting builders’ needs, and suggest ways to fill gaps in the support framework.
ISO 9001 is the international gold standard for quality management, and our certification demonstrates our commitment to delivering on our service quality pledges as well as continually improving how we manage the organisation.
After a two year break during the Covid pandemic, we are able to restart our regional meetings and bring wood recyclers from across the the network together to share ideas, opportunities and new ways of working
The Birmingham-based enterprise supplies both decorative panels for the entrance and wooden thrones for cycling medallists.
This government funded scheme to help young people who have been unemployed due to the pandemic into the workplace has allowed us to offer training and work experience to 44 16-25 year olds.
Oxford Wood Recycling hosts Channel 5’s The Gadget Show for an item testing electric drills.
Managing Director Richard Mehmed accepts the Morgan Sindall North West Regional Social Enterprise Award on behalf of the network at the construction company’s Manchester offices.
The UK Green Building Council launches a new website showcasing its work to mitigate climate change, safeguard nature, spearhead the drive to more efficient resource use and support communities to thrive. We share their ambitions to make construction better for people and planet and we’re delighted that Community Wood Recycling is one of the solutions that they list.
Our team at Brighton & Hove Wood Recycling Project were excited to deliver these 21 beautiful planters to the ABBA arena in London! Made from recycled wood materials, the planters not only add a natural feel to the venue’s surroundings but also contribute to a more sustainable future. We’re proud to provide solutions that benefit the environment and create job opportunities for disadvantaged individuals. Thank you ABBA arena for taking a chance on us!
The BBC Eastenders and Community Wood Recycling Pilot Project is selected as a finalist in the Circular Economy Project of the Year category of the UK Green Business Awards 2023.
Manchester-based Community Wood Recyclers Touch Wood EMERGE partner with Willmott Dixon to build a new sheltered workshop for the Petrus Incredible Edibles Rochdale Project (PIER). PIER provides meaningful activity for homeless people to improve their health and wellbeing, helping them to engage with the wider community and enabling them to gain skills and experience.
Publications
Our annual reports contain information about accolades, media coverage, and social and environmental outcomes, as well as the changing challenges and successes of the Community Wood Recycling business model over the year.
