Recycling Machine
| Recycling Machine | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Type | Crafted Item |
| Recipe | Fishing (Level 4) |
The Recycling Machine takes the junk that comes up on a fishing line and turns it into building materials. Trash, Driftwood, Soggy Newspaper, Broken CDs and Broken Glasses all go in, and Stone, Coal, Iron Ore, Wood, Torches, Cloth or Refined Quartz come out. Each job is over within an hour of game time, so one machine keeps up with a busy row of crab pots. The recipe comes from the Fishing skill, and the Community Center also hands out a free machine. Its quiet strength is the Refined Quartz it pulls out of old CDs and Broken Glasses.
The in-game description reads: Turns fishing trash into resources.
Recipe
Reaching Fishing level 4 teaches the recipe. Fishing levels rise with time on the rod and with emptying Crab Pots. The machine takes Wood, Stone and a single Iron Bar. Smelting Iron Ore with Coal in a Furnace gives the bar, so the whole build is cheap once a Furnace is running.
A free machine comes from the Bulletin Board in the Community Center. Completing the Field Research Bundle there gives one Recycling Machine as the reward. That bundle asks for a Purple Mushroom, a Nautilus Shell, a Chub and a Frozen Geode.
These are the ingredients one batch needs.
| Name | Image | Amount |
|---|---|---|
| Wood | 
|
25 |
| Stone | 
|
25 |
| Iron Bar | 
|
1 |
Use
Holding a piece of junk and using it on the machine loads it. The result is ready about an hour later. Joja Cola and Rotten Plants are the two kinds of rubbish it refuses.
Each kind of junk has its own results. Plain Trash usually breaks down into a little Stone, sometimes into Coal and now and then into Iron Ore. Driftwood mostly gives back Wood, with a smaller chance of Coal. Soggy Newspaper nearly always becomes a bundle of three Torches, and once in a while it becomes a piece of Cloth instead. Broken CDs and Broken Glasses always turn into one Refined Quartz each.
The junk itself turns up all over the valley. Every fishing spot can hook Trash and other rubbish in any season, and crab pots pull it up as well. Garbage Cans around Pelican Town also hold rubbish of the same kind.
Notes
The Refined Quartz is the real prize. Recycling Broken CDs and Broken Glasses gives Refined Quartz with no Coal and no Furnace time. That quartz goes into Quality Sprinklers, Lightning Rods, Garden Pots, the Sonar Bobber and later the Solar Panel and Farm Computer. A steady trickle of it from the fishing junk saves many trips to the Mines for raw Quartz.
Cloth from newspaper is rare but useful. Before a Loom and sheep are in place, it is one of the few early ways to collect the Cloth needed for the Mill and for tailoring.
One machine is usually enough for a small fishing setup, since each item takes only an hour. A farm with many crab pots and fish ponds may want two or three side by side. Placing them next to the chest where catches are stored keeps the daily round short. Recycling everything also clears junk out of the backpack without throwing it in the bin.
All Crafting
Every entry in this group, with its key details.
