Crow Recycling impact report January to December 2025  Foreword by Bill Smith, chairman of trustees  This was the year we celebrated our 40th anniversary. We looked back to the early days when Crow was based at the Barras Heath Wholesale Market and ahead to the development of our new activities in horticultural and cookery.  Our new cookery project sees our volunteers using produce from the garden to cook healthy dishes in the Crow kitchen. Both the cookery and the horticulture are funded by the National Lottery’s Awards for All.  Meanwhile our core activities of paper and can recycling and our Scrapstore are going strong.  Throughout 2025 as well as the 40 years we have been going it is our volunteers, customers and funders who have kept us going. This is a good time to say thank you to them all.  Crow Recycling Theory of Change  Inputs Outputs Outcomes Impact Funding Provision of volunteering opportunities for disabled adults Learning new skills eg operating machinery, manual handling and materials sorting  Improved well being  Time and expertise from volunteer trustees Provision of work experience for teenagers with special needs Experience the social aspects of the work place such as Christmas parties and break time chats  Stronger college applications for secondary school pupils and job applications for college students    Learning to take some of the responsibilities of the work place eg wearing of safety boots while volunteering in the warehouse  Ability to move to more demanding placements  Providing a Scrapstore selling reused art and craft materials Craft materials available at a reasonable price Less waste incinerated or sent to landfill and crafts are more affordable  Providing craft  workshops Tackling isolation both at the workshops and chatting to customers during the week Less social isolation  Crow Recycling mission statement  To provide quality training, tuition and work experience in a supportive environment for people with disabilities, learning difficulties, disadvantage and who are long term unemployed. To enable them to fully develop and realise their personal potential.  Facts and figures  In 2025 we had 30 [...]

Update: Applications for this job are now closed. Thanks to everyone who applied. Warehouse supervisor  Annual salary: £23,000  Leave: four weeks plus bank holidays Working hours: 34.5 hours day times weekdays  On site not work from home  Flexible hours not available  Nest pension scheme  This role is subject to a DBS check for both the child and adult workforce  Job description  We’re a charity providing supported volunteering and we need someone to oversee day to day operations in our warehouse in Hillfields, Coventry,  In this job you’ll be supervising people with learning difficulties working in our recycling and reuse social enterprises. That includes the operation of shredding and baling machinery. The people you’ll be supervising are mainly adults with learning difficulties along with a smaller number of school aged teenagers, also with learning difficulties, on work experience. Occasionally you’ll be helping show school pupils on educational visits around the warehouse.  You’ll also be ensuring our social enterprises run smoothly including serving customers and working with our van driver to schedule collections and deliveries.  You’ll be one of the organisation’s first aiders and play a key role in minimising everyday risks in the warehouse. You’ll have responsibility for unlocking the building in the morning and locking up at the end of the day.  This role includes a small amount of admin – mainly answering the phone when the office manager isn’t around, checking e mails in the mornings and a limited amount of paper work to log waste paper destruction.   Person specification  Essential  - experience of caring for a disabled adult. This could be through paid care work or through informal experience such as caring for a relative  Essential – experience of operating machinery and willingness to learn including fork lift truck operation  Essential – willingness to complete a first at work course and provide first aid cover  Essential – able to undertake manual handling training and carry out safe lifting in the warehouse  Desirable – Driving licence  How to apply  Send a CV and letter of application to Crow Recycling. The e mail is info@crowrecycling.co.uk and [...]

Crow Recycling celebrated a 40th anniversary this week. Pictured here is long standing volunteer David Wood (right) cutting the celebration cake with chairman of trustees Bill Smith. Volunteers, staff and supporters gathered for a celebration and a look back at the ups and downs of 40 years of community recycling. In his speech Bill remembered late founder Barbara Cowling, pictured below, whose determination and kindness turned an idea into a reality.

In 1985 when Coventry’s Crow Recycling was founded Madonna was at number one with Into the Groove, the miners’ strike ended in defeat for the unions and MPs salaries were raised to £24,250.  40 years later Britain’s last deep coal mine has closed, MPs earn £93,904, Madonna is a mum of six in her 60s and Crow Recycling is still going strong.  Chairman of trustees Bill Smith said: “It’s great to celebrate our 40 years of  helping the environment and helping people with various learning and physical disabilities.  “Times have not always been easy for Crow and there have been many occasions when we thought we would have to give up but we are still here.”  Crow was founded by Barbara Cowling in 1985 at the Barras Heath Wholesale Market. The organisation started out as the Big Green Business Machine later renamed Coventry Recycling of Waste, Crow for short.  Barbara was a pioneer of recycling at a time before kerbside collections. She was determined to reduce the amount of recyclable materials sent to landfill or incineration. Even before Crow began she used to collect newspapers, in Earlsdon, where she lived, to divert them from landfill.  Crow teamed up with Coventry City Council’s social services providing work placements and training for adults with learning difficulties.   In a time before kerbside recycling collections the best options for recycling cans and bottles  were supermarket can bins. Crow was responsible for emptying them and crushing and baling the cans to sell on for recycling.  Crow also processed and recycled office waste paper from a host of large organisations and companies including local councils, universities and automotive giants. That included destroying confidential office waste paper, a service Crow continues to [...]

A team from Jaguar Land Rover swapped desks and offices for spades and sunshine when they volunteered at Crow Recycling. The group from the Vehicle Efficiency Group at the luxury car giant's Gaydon base spent a day in Crow Recycling's garden. They planted fruit trees, built compost bins, laid a woodchip surface between raised beds and made improvements to access. The garden, currently being funded by the National Lottery, is where Crow's service users, mainly adults with learning difficulties, learn to grow food. This year's harvest included cucumbers, courgettes and tomatoes. The project has seen Crow's service users getting out in the sunshine and eating the vegetables they have grown. The newly planted fruit trees will see apples, pears and plums added to the list. The apple tree is a Wyken Pippin, a traditional Coventry variety named after the Wyken area of the city. Pete Taylor, engineering manager at JLR said: "The sun is shining - we thought it was going to be rainy. This has been good hard work and we feel we are really achieving something." Crow Recycling office manager Lucy Lynch said: "It was brilliant to have the help. The team worked really hard and we're really grateful they chose us for their team volunteering event. The building is called Orchard House but until now there was no orchard. Jaguar Land Rover along with with our grant from the National Lottery and Team SpringBoard CIC's horticultural know how have helped us put that right. And we have a woodchip surface between the beds, a step where one was needed, compost bins and the beginnings of better access." The gardening project is a partnership with community gardening organisation Team SpringBoard CIC. Team Springboard's [...]