The machine is the latest weapon to be brought in by authorities in the Outer Hebrides in an attempt to clean up the islands.

Its target will be the abandoned cars and vans which sit rotting next to crofts.

The mobile car baler which will be operating in the Uists has provided a low cost, locally based solution to dealing with scrap vehicles

Councillor Angus Nicolson

Every year Western Isles Council picks up about 600 vehicles which have come to the end of their life - the third highest number in Scotland.

Until now there has been nowhere for the rotting hulks to go on the islands.

The mobile car baler crunches the wreck to a more manageable cube in a matter of minutes.

The Western Isles Council is the first authority in Britain to buy such a machine, which cost more than �100,000.

However, the authority said it was a price worth paying to rid the Hebridean landscape of hundreds of rusting eyesores.

Steel recycled

The council's environmental services chairman, Councillor Angus Nicolson, described it as a "major success story".

"The mobile car baler which will be operating in the Uists has provided a low cost, locally based solution to dealing with scrap vehicles in the Western Isles," he said.

It started its tour of the islands this week in Benbecula.

The steel produced by the machine is sent off for recycling.