Rust Recycler Guide: What to Recycle for Scrap and Metal

Use the red recycler whenever you can reach one. It gives back 75% of an item's recipe. Green gives 50% and yellow just 40%, so red pays half as much again as green for the same loot.

Only 24 items give scrap directly. The best are the Jackhammer (30 scrap at green), Tree Lights and the Rifle Body (25 each). Next come Tech Trash, both fuses and the Salvage Workbench Upgrade (20 each). Everything else comes back as what it was made of: Metal Fragments, High Quality Metal (HQM), Cloth and other components.

Every number here comes from the game's own files. We use the same rules as the Recycling panel on each item's page in Rust Items. It assumes a vanilla (unmodded) server and an item at full condition. If a server changes recycler rates, its numbers won't match.

How does a recycler decide what you get back?

Know the rule and you know what's worth carrying before you make the trip. A recycler reads the item's crafting recipe and gives back a share of it. It multiplies each ingredient by its efficiency, then divides by how many items one craft makes. The whole part of the result is certain. The fraction is your chance of getting one more.

Take an Assault Rifle. It's crafted from 50 HQM, 200 Wood, a Rifle Body and 4 Metal Springs. At green it comes back as 25 HQM, 100 Wood, 2 Metal Springs and a 50% chance of the Rifle Body.

Scrap works differently. You never get back the scrap a recipe costs. Instead, each item has its own scrap value, scaled by the recycler's efficiency against green's 50%.

Scrap's fraction isn't rolled either. The game carries it over to the next item in the stack. So two Rifle Bodies at red give 75 scrap, never 74 or 76. That's why so few items give scrap, and why Gears recycle into 10 scrap even though crafting them takes 100.

Some things can't go in at all. An item with no crafting recipe can't be recycled, and neither can food. That rules out raw resources, blueprint fragments, Glue and Bleach. Of the 1,138 items in the game's files, 865 fit in a recycler. All numbers here are for an item at full condition. A damaged one gives back less.

Green, yellow or red: which recycler gives the most?

Pick the wrong recycler and you lose part of every stack. All three run the same recipe at different efficiencies, so the ratio holds on every item. Yellow gives 80% of what green gives. Red gives 150%.

A green recycler on a power grid at stage 2 works at 60% instead of 50%. That's a fifth more than usual. On our item pages, the three tabs are labelled Monument (green), Safe zone (yellow) and Power grid (red).

Yellow's loss hides in the chances. Green gives a sure 1 HQM for each Tech Trash. Yellow gives only an 80% chance of it, so a stack of 20 brings about 16 instead of 20. The gap grows with the stack: 20 Rifle Bodies are 400 scrap at yellow, 500 at green and 750 at red.

Pick an item to see what each recycler gives for one, or for a whole stack:

Which items give the most scrap?

If you're after scrap, the list is short: just 24 items. Of those, 14 are components, the parts that go into crafting. Weapon bodies, Tech Trash and the two fuses are the ones worth hauling. Gears, Metal Springs and Sheet Metal pay less and are worth more inside a recipe. The rest are a tool, two backpacks, the Nailgun and holiday items.

The Jackhammer is the best single item. You get 30 scrap, 2 Metal Blades with a 50% chance of a third, and a 50% chance of a Metal Pipe. A Large Backpack gives 10 scrap, 50 Cloth and 2 HQM.

The Nailgun is the only weapon on the list: 10 scrap and 37.5 metal fragments. Every other gun pays you in metal, springs and a chance at its body. Recycle that body in a second pass to get the scrap.

The fuses are the easiest call. Each gives 20 scrap at green and 30 at red. In the game's recipes, only the Test Generator takes an Electric Fuse, and nothing takes a Heavy Fuse. The Heavy Fuse is for restoring a Power Plant. Unless you plan to do that, both fuses go in the recycler.

Which components should you keep instead of recycling?

Recycle the wrong part and you'll be out looking for it again. Scrap is only one thing a component is worth. Before you recycle one, count how many recipes take it and what you'd have to find again. The table counts the distinct items whose crafting recipe needs each component.

Tech Trash is the one players regret most. It's in 22 recipes. Every Timed Explosive Charge takes 2, and targeting computers, cameras and batteries need it too.

Metal Pipes go into 44 recipes, from every Rocket (2 each) to the shotguns and the L96. Gears go into 46, including every Garage Door and ladder hatch. Metal Springs go into 30, mostly guns. You can research each of these three for 60 scrap and craft it. But crafting one costs far more than recycling it gives back.

The Rifle Body is in 14 recipes, including the Assault Rifle, LR-300, L96, M249 and their skins. And you can't research it. Keep enough for the rifles you plan to craft, and recycle the rest at 25 scrap each. The SMG Body (3 recipes) and Semi Automatic Body (5) are easier to let go.

The engine parts are in no recipe at all: the High Quality Carburetor and its crankshafts, pistons, spark plugs and valves. If you don't run a car, they're just metal fragments. At green, that's 85 from a High Quality Carburetor and 60 from each high quality crankshaft, pistons, spark plugs and valves.

What should you recycle for high quality metal and metal fragments?

Short on HQM? Recycle armor, scopes and spare heavy weapons. Each gives back half the metal in its recipe at green, and three quarters at red:

The Metal Chest Plate pays twice: 9 HQM plus 4 Sewing Kits, and Sewing Kits go into 52 recipes. A gun is a worse deal. Recycle a working Assault Rifle and you get half its metal. The body you need for the next one is a coin flip. So recycle duplicates and broken spares, not your only rifle.

For Metal Fragments, recycle heavy, cheap items:

Don't skip the Targeting Computer. Besides 50 fragments and 1 HQM, it returns 2 Tech Trash with a 50% chance of a third. A CCTV Camera gives 1 HQM and 1 Tech Trash, each with a 50% chance of one more.