A recycler turns components and most crafted items back into raw materials, and it is where most of your scrap really comes from. Safe zone recyclers at Outpost and Bandit Camp return 40% of an item's value. Monument recyclers return 50% by default since the Power Trip update (August 2026) and go back to 60% once the Power Plant has enough heavy fuses in it. A new red recycler inside Power Plant gives 75%, but only at maximum power.

How a recycler works

Open it, drag items into the input side, hit the green Turn On button. It needs no fuel. There are six input slots and six output slots, and the machine stops when the input runs dry or the output fills up, so empty the right side if you are recycling a full inventory.

Speed depends on the type. A normal monument recycler takes 5 seconds per item cycle, a safe zone recycler takes 8. At maximum Power Plant output the green monument recyclers drop to 4.5 seconds.

Two things get people killed. The recycler is loud, so anyone nearby knows you are there. And the container is only locked while someone has it open, so if you walk off to loot a crate, whatever is still inside belongs to the next person.

Recycler types and yields

Recycler Where Yield Cycle
Yellow (safe zone) Outpost (3), Bandit Camp (2), Deep Sea floating cities 40% 8 s
Green (monument) Most monuments outside safe zones 50% base, 60% at Power Plant level 2 or higher 5 s, 4.5 s at max power
Red Power Plant only 75% Faster than green, max power only

Power Plant levels come from heavy fuses slotted into its generators. The current wiki table puts level 2 (60% green recyclers) at 4 to 9 fuses and level 4 (red recycler online) at 18 or more. Fuses cannot be removed once inserted, and each one lasts 9,600 seconds by default, a bit over two and a half hours. Since the Livestock update, fuses last four times longer on servers with 10 or fewer players online, scaling back to normal at 100.

In practice: on a busy server with nobody feeding the plant, a monument recycler gives you 25% more than Outpost (50 vs 40). When the grid is up it is 50% more (60 vs 40). That gap is the whole reason people risk recycling at monuments.

Which monuments have a recycler

Corrosion Hour's monument table (updated February 2026) lists recyclers at:

  • Low tier: Abandoned Supermarket, Oxum's Gas Station, Mining Outpost, Lighthouse, Junkyard, Large Harbor, Small Harbor, Satellite Dish, Sewer Branch (2)
  • Mid tier: Airfield (2), Train Yard, Water Treatment Plant, Power Plant, Ferry Terminal, Radtown, Giant Excavator, Arctic Research Base
  • High tier: Launch Site, Military Tunnels

The Dome (sphere tank) also got a recycler in the October 2025 Meta Shift update. Fishing villages, the Ranch, Large Barn, both Oil Rigs and the Missile Silo have none.

What components recycle into

Numbers below are per single item from the official Rust wiki. The monument column is the full 60% rate; on an unpowered grid (50%) expect roughly five sixths of it. "+80%" means an 80% chance of one extra.

Item Monument recycler (60%) Safe zone (40%)
Rifle Body 30 scrap, 1 HQM +80% 20 scrap, 1 HQM +20%
Semi Automatic Body 18 scrap, 90 frags, 1 HQM +80% 12 scrap, 60 frags, 1 HQM +20%
SMG Body 18 scrap, 1 HQM +80% 12 scrap, 1 HQM +20%
Tech Trash 24 scrap, 1 HQM +20% 16 scrap, 80% chance of 1 HQM
Electric Fuse 24 scrap 16 scrap
Gears 12 scrap, 15 frags 8 scrap, 10 frags
Metal Spring 12 scrap, 1 HQM +20% 8 scrap, 80% chance of 1 HQM
Sheet Metal 9 scrap +60%, 120 frags, 1 HQM +20% 6 scrap +40%, 80 frags, 80% chance of 1 HQM
Road Signs 6 scrap, 1 HQM +20% 4 scrap, 80% chance of 1 HQM
Metal Pipe 6 scrap, 1 HQM +20% 4 scrap, 80% chance of 1 HQM
Metal Blade 2 scrap +40%, 18 frags 1 scrap +60%, 12 frags
Empty Propane Tank 1 scrap +20%, 60 frags 80% chance of 1 scrap, 40 frags
Targeting Computer 3 tech trash, 60 frags, 1 HQM +20% 2 tech trash, 40 frags, 80% chance of 1 HQM
Tarp 60 cloth 40 cloth
Sewing Kit 12 cloth, 1 rope +80% 8 cloth, 1 rope +20%
Rope 18 cloth 12 cloth

Crafted items follow the same percentages. A Workbench Level 1 (500 wood, 100 frags) gives back 300 wood and 60 frags at a monument. A Workbench Level 2 even returns 3 Basic Blueprint Fragments at a monument recycler, 2 at a safe zone one, so do not recycle a spare bench at Outpost if you can help it.

What is worth recycling

Always recycle: rifle bodies, SMG bodies and spare semi bodies once you have the guns you want. They are the best scrap per slot in the game. Tech trash too, unless you are saving it for C4 (two per Timed Explosive Charge).

Think before recycling:

  • Gears. They give 12 scrap, but crafting a gear costs 100 scrap. A Garage Door takes two. Keep a few for doors.
  • Metal springs and pipes. Springs go into almost every gun (the Assault Rifle takes four, the Python one plus three pipes). Early wipe, recycle them. Once you have gun BPs, hold some.
  • Electric fuses. 24 scrap at a monument sounds fine until you remember a fuse opens a puzzle room worth far more. See the keycard puzzles guide.

Low value: metal blades, propane tanks and rope. Recycle them for the frags or cloth if you are already at a recycler, but they are not worth a trip. Tarps are a decent cloth source if you are short on hemp.

Where to recycle

Solo or fresh spawn, use Outpost or Bandit Camp. Losing 20% of the yield beats losing the whole bag. Once you have a kit, pick a quiet monument recycler on your route home; a full inventory of components gives noticeably more scrap there, especially if someone on the server has fed the Power Plant. Check the map for a lit-up grid before deciding.

If you are planning what to spend that scrap on, the workbench and tech tree guide and the crafting calculator cover costs, and the scrap farming guide covers where the components come from.

Sources