Rust – Recycling Guide: How to Recycle, What to Recycle, Etc.

Having resources in Rust will make the difference between survival and death. If you don’t have enough raw resources, you are most likely going to die against the first player that you bump into.

However, getting resources isn’t extremely easy, as most players would rather spend their time doing something more productive than hitting Stone nodes and cutting down trees. Scavenging is usually a much more enjoyable pastime that most Rust fans like to do.

Recommended Read: How to Split Stacks in Rust

Luckily, scavenging can also help you get raw resources since you can use many of the components that you get along the way to deconstruct them using a Recycler.

Since recycling is a relatively complex system for most new players, we will provide you with an extensive guide on how to use the Recycler in Rust, where to find it, what it actually does, and which components are the best to deconstruct.

Table of Contents

• What Is Recycling in Rust
• How to Recycle in Rust
• Where to Recycle in Rust – All Recycler Locations
• What Can You Get From Recycling in Rust
• Best Things to Recycle in Rust
• Which Components Should You Keep and Which Should You Recycle in Rust

What Is Recycling in Rust

Most items in Rust are made out of some raw resources. By using a Recycler, you will deconstruct any item and get most of its raw resources.

For example, if you recycle a Building Plan, which you use to construct your base, you will get 10 Wood from the Recycler. The Building Plan is made with 20 Wood, so you got 50% of the base resources.

There is no other way to destroy items and still get back their resources. The Recycler is the only machine in Rust that can help you deconstruct items and get their raw resources.

Though you might think that you don’t necessarily need to use the Recycler, you will realize after a few scavenging runs that you will collect a lot of items that are useless. Most of these items are called Components.

What makes Components different from other items is that they are only used to create other items. They don’t have any other use besides helping in creating something new.

In general, you will only have to recycle Components on a regular basis. However, there is nothing stopping you from also recycling other items, such as clothes, weapons, and so on.

How to Recycle in Rust

To recycle in Rust, you will need to interact with a Recycler, place the item that you want to deconstruct in the “input” slots, and press the “Turn On” button.

Once you’ve turned the Recycler on, you will just have to wait for a bit for the items to start deconstructing. All their resources will slowly appear in the “output” slots, and they will stack.

Since there aren’t that many base resources in Rust, you can be calm as you won’t lose anything. All of the items’ raw resources will stack in those 6 slots, and the machine will just stop working if there isn’t any more space in the “output” slots.

Also, there is a rumor that if you place items on more slots, the recycling will be more efficient or that it will move faster, as it does in the Furnace. However, that is just a myth. The Recycler actually works better if you use stacks, as it can only recycle the slots one by one.

You also won’t get any extra resources by wasting more time and placing a stack on more slots in the Recycler. So, just stick them in there and turn the machine on.

The machine will also start making some noise when you turn it on, but it won’t be loud enough for other players to hear it. Usually, if you are going to get killed while recycling it is because someone is camping the Recycler or you just bumped into someone who wanted to do the same thing.

So, the Rust Recycler is relatively easy to use. However, you won’t be able to get one in your base since they aren’t craftable. Recyclers can only be found near monuments, as they would be too overpowered if players had them in their bases.

Where to Recycle in Rust – All Recycler Locations

The only locations where you can find Recyclers to recycle in Rust are the monuments. There is no way to craft a Recycler to use at your base.

Depending on the server, the location of the Recyclers can be different. Some servers can have Recyclers at every monument, while others only at safe zones.

On most official servers, there are Recyclers at almost every monument. Here is a list of all the monuments where you can find Recyclers in Rust:

• Abandoned Supermarket
• Harbor
• Junkyard
• Launch Site
• Lighthouse
• Military Tunnels
• Nuclear Plant
• Outpost
• Oxum’s Gas Station
• Satellite Dish
• Train Yard
• Warehouse
• Water Treatment

The easiest locations to find the Recycler are the Supermarket, Warehouse, Gas Station, and Junkyard. Since these locations don’t have any hostile NPCs, it can be quite easy to recycle your items and then head back to the base.

Unfortunately, since those are usually the locations where most starter-level players go, you can often find campers or just other players looking for some easy loot.

The best location in Rust to use the Recycler is the Outpost. Since it is a Safe Zone, you can head over and use one of the Recyclers there. You should be able to easily find it, as there are signs all over the Outpost guiding you to all of its facilities.

However, there are usually a lot of players using those, so make sure to not get out of the Recycler menu, as other players can then interact with it and steal your resources.

The Outpost is the only Safe Zone location on vanilla servers that has a Recycler. This means that the Fishing Village, Bandit Camp, and Stables don’t have a Recycler. So, you will either have to face scientists, players, or thieves to recycle your items in Rust.

What Can You Get From Recycling in Rust

Usually, what you can get from recycling in Rust is around 50% of the base resources that made up the original item. If one of the resources is only used once to make that item, there is a 50% chance that you will actually get that resource.

In general, the most common resources that you will get from recycling is Rust are:

• Cloth
• Gun Powder
• High Quality Metal
• Low Grade Fuel
• Metal Fragments
• Wood

These are the resources that most items are made of, and they are usually incredibly important. Due to this, recycling is an amazing source of vital resources.

Players will usually use recycling as a prime source of resources if they don’t feel like specifically scavenging for an exact item.

If an item is made out of a lot of resources, then you can get around 50% of what it was originally made of. This is why buildings can be a really good source of resources if you find them while scavenging. Clothes as well if you need Cloth in the early game and don’t want to loot for Hemp.

Best Things to Recycle in Rust

There is a type of item in Rust that is the best choice to recycle by far. These items are known as Components. The best way to tell if you found a component or not is if they have an actual texture when they aren’t in your inventory.

For example, if you dropped down most items, they would turn into a cloth sack. If you dropped from your inventory a Road Signs, you would see the Road Signs on the ground.

Components can only be used to craft other items. They don’t have any other uses other than help create new items. This is why, if you don’t plan on constructing one of their items, they would be best used as Recycler fodder.

Components are extremely easy to find usually, and you just need to walk around the roads and break some barrels to get them.

Still, you can also recycle buildings, clothes, and weapons to get some high quality resources if you don’t need to use them. Since you can find gates, walls, and other huge items for your base that you don’t really want, you can easily get rid of them.

Which Components Should You Keep and Which Should You Recycle in Rust

When it comes to which Components are the best and worst in Rust, there shouldn’t be a complex tier list. There are only two things that you should think about when you find a Component: should you keep it or should you recycle it?

Usually, the easiest items to get are usually the ones that you should recycle. For example, the Road Signs are incredibly easy to get, as all you need to do is destroy real road signs on the roads of the island.

The ones that you should always keep are the ones that help you build weapons. Since firearms usually break down extremely fast, you will need to make a lot of them. This is why Components such as the SMG Body, Rifle Body, and Metal Spring are the kind of items that you should always keep.

Best Components Table

Here is a complete list of Components in Rust, where we will tell you which ones you should keep, which you should recycle, what resources you will get from each one of them, and what items you can craft using them:

That’s everything you need to know about recycling in Rust!

Have any input or suggestions for this guide? Let us know in the comment section below.