A local technology recycling service has helped to donate laptops and PCs to schools across the county to help children learn online.

A&LH Environmental Services provides repair and refurbishment facilities for used technology, making them safe for re-use.

Working with Prince Resourcing , Barry-based recruiters, A&LH provided data-cleansing for 30 computers to be donated to Gladstone Primary School.

"We put an appeal out as a company because we decided that we wanted to help as many schools as we can, through this pandemic," said business development team manager Anna Thomas.

"It's all over the news about the lack of equipment for children to be using at home.

"We acted as a data cleansing, while Prince Resourcing would obtain the laptops.

"We collected them, we brought them back to our unit to do a full data wipe, clean them, make sure that they were appropriate specifications for the school.

"From a data protection and GDPR point of view, you've got to make sure it's safe for the children to use, so we make sure it's forensically impossible to retrieve any of the item's previous data.

"Then Prince Resourcing delivered them to the school," she said.

Last week 30 laptops were donated to Gladstone Primary School and a further 15 are set to be delivered today.

But A&LH has been working on PCs and laptops for children all over Wales, working with Donate I.T Wales who source the technology for A&LH to work on.

"Donate I.T Wales has accumulated technology from quite a few places and we're then acting again to data-wipe everything, to make sure that there's absolutely nothing on it," said Anna.

"We are then uploading a software to make it manageable for children to use. It then goes back off to the Donate I.T Wales as they cascade amongst the hundreds of schools that they've got on their books.

"We're also working in close communication with the Vale of Glamorgan Council IT department to distribute laptops and PCs to schools that need that extra support."

Anna said that hundreds of pieces of technology have gone out to schools across the country, using donations from larger companies and individual members of the public.

The computers are helping students complete tasks online while working from home.

"Even though we're sort of heading towards the end of the pandemic now, hopefully, a lot of their work needs to be done on these computers, whether for homework, or whether they keep them in school, it's all part of the blended learning," said Anna.

"It's going to make a massive difference to them, which is really nice.

"It's what we do as our core business so we're just trying to help out where we can, and we're only sort of small business ourselves," she said.

Head of Gladstone Primary School Caroline Newman told Alun Cairns MP: "It's going to make such a big difference; we are so grateful.

"We've already got a huge list of children who already need this support, thank you!"