Scotland's first fully functioning battery recycling plant is preparing for the influx of electric vehicles across the nation.

Belmont Trading UK's Kilwinning plant currently recycles all types of domestic and industrial batteries.

However, as the automotive industry moves towards increasing its footprint in electric vehicles sales, the factor has revamped its 25,000 square foot recycling facility workspace.

It has invested £300,000 on plant and equipment to sort and shred thousands of batteries every day.

Managing director Jeff Borrman said: "The rising number of electric vehicles comes along with an increasing demand for Li-Ion batteries and we are already starting to work with the automotive and telecoms industry on its recycling strategies for these batteries.

"Elements within these batteries such as cobalt and nickel are valuable, so it is economically worthwhile to recycle EV batteries.

"Whilst this can be quite a time and cost consuming process, it has to be planned properly, hence our move to adapt our industrial plant to prepare for the increase in EV battery numbers which we anticipate will increase markedly in the coming years.

"The key at all times, is to extract maximum value with minimum environmental impact by recycling in the UK."