Tag: eco

Wiltshire Digital Drive’s Plea to Donate Old Tech in the New Year


Wiltshire residents are being asked to donate their old Laptops, PCs & Mobile phones in the new year, as part of the 3rd annual Donate Your Digital Day…..

Taking place just after Christmas on Friday, January 10th, 2025, Donate Your Digital Day was created by Wiltshire Digital Drive (WDD) to encourage people to donate any tech they had replaced over the festive period such as laptops and tablets, to reduce the amount of technology that goes to landfill and to address digital poverty in the county.

Once donated, devices will be refurbished and handed back out to schools, organisations, and charities, to help people access the benefits that technology affords such as education, employment and better wellbeing.  

Natalie Luckham, Chief Executive at Wiltshire Digital Drive, said: “We had such a positive response to previous Donate Your Digital Days. In 2022 we received 1,000 donated devices in just one day! We had a break last year but we’re back for 2025. So many people receive new laptops and tablets for Christmas, or treat themselves in the Black Friday or Boxing Day sales, now is the perfect time to let us have your old tech. By giving it to us, not only will the device help another member of our community, but it will also stop it going to landfill.”

“The figures speak for themselves. Since we began our mission in 2020, we’ve given more than 3,500 school children, families and organisations a laptop or computer. Imagine how many more we could help if we all worked together. And it’s not just members of the public that can get involved; we’re also asking businesses who are looking at upgrading their IT to consider donating their old tech to us.”

Local businesses across Wiltshire will be opening their doors to become drop off points for the donated items. They can be taken to:

Naturally Social, Melksham
Aster Housing, Devizes
Ford Dealership, Trowbridge
Hearing & Mobility Store, Marlborough/ Swindon/ Wroughton
Household Waste & Recycling Centre, Swindon
Castle Sundborn, Malmesbury
Godolphin School, Salisbury
Retro Relics Games Café, Market Lavington
The Mind Tree Café, Rowde
Town Councils in Bradford On Avon, Tidworth and Calne
The Home Guard Club, Warminster

Anyone wishing to help who doesn’t have a device to give can donate to the non-profit’s Gift of Tech Crowdfunder page. A £45 donation will cover all the parts needed to refurbish one laptop, with all donations match funded by the Aviva Community Fund. www.crowdfunder.co.uk/p/the-gift-of-tech

Please visit www.wiltshiredigitaldrive.org for opening times and locations where you can donate.

The CIC ensures that every piece of technology donated is tested and securely wiped. If a machine isn’t feasible to upgrade, it will remove all reusable parts and recycle the rest, so nothing goes to waste.

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Slug Eggs Are On The Menu!

Join the Devizes Slugs Facebook page they said, be fun they said; I even considered the U in slugs might be a typo. No one expressed the horror which might possibly be revealed to me by these mollusc-loving conservationists, that slug eggs are on the menu in swanky restaurants.

Yet a post went up on the page telling of the group’s “ever increasing horror” of reports of slug eggs being described as a new “super food” which are apparently being actively harvested from the wild by foragers for use in high class restaurants as “Caviar Blanc.’

Now, the trusty ol’ Wikipedia defines caviar blanc as snail caviar, “a type of caviar that consists of fresh or processed eggs of land snails. It is a luxury gourmet speciality produced in France and Poland. They were also a delicacy in the ancient world, also known as “Pearls of Aphrodite” for their supposed aphrodisiac properties.” And it goes onto describing heliciculture snail farming and the process of farming or raising land snails specifically for human consumption.

Look, I’m fine with a pizza, thank you, but if you choose to eat snails eggs properly farmed to ensure the delicate balance of wildlife isn’t effected by your werid obssesion, that’s entiely your perogative, note only I’ll politely decline the offer of dinner at your gaff.

But to forage for slug’s eggs must be upsetting the entire food chain, not to mention a liitle twisted, and should you get swarmed by an angry mafia of crows that’s your own lookout.

But the new trendy grub must have cocaine dealers admiring the profit margin, and can fetch £75 for just 75 grams! Supposing the slime has to be separated prior to human consumption, and that labour intensive method must be costly.

Devizes Slugs, a page for all those interested in Slugs in the Devizes area which emphasises their ecological benefits, defends them against all forms of chemical and physical attack and provides a rescue and shelter service, say “if you see Caviar Blanc on the menu of any local restaurants please tell us as a matter of urgency. This has to stop.”

Firstly you’d need evidence they’ve been foraged rather than farmed, but secondly, as easy money as it might appear, I’d like to suggest it’s really not going to go down well on a first date if, when asked what you do for a living, you reply “I separate slug eggs from slime,” so don’t do it, it’s filthy!