1. Loot the roads
The first way and the most common way to get Scrap is to Loot the Roads. If you have traveled on a road in Rust before, you probably have noticed all the little barrels and trucks on the side of the road every once and awhile.
Well, if you break barrels with your tools, Scrap, and other loot will drop from it. You can also loot the little chests and boxes that are on the broken-down trucks as well. If you are running to a monument, take the roads, because you can get some decent scrap by just traveling.
2. Recycle unwanted items
The second way to get Scrap is to recycle all your unwanted items, and maybe some important items if you need the Scrap. At most Monuments you travel to, you will find a Recycler somewhere in the area.
What the best thing for you to do is, go looting and find everything you can around the Monument, and once you have filled your inventory, run over to the recycler and just recycle everything you can. This will give you a ton of Scrap, depending on the loot you found.
3. Loot the Keycard doors
The third way to get Scrap is to loot the Keycard doors. This goes along with recycling because the Keycard doors are found at the Monuments. In these doors, there are a ton of loot.
If you have Keycards, then make sure to loot these doors because they can give some amazing items if you are lucky. When you loot the rooms, grab everything so you can recycle whatever items you want to for Scrap.
4. Steal from other people
The fourth way to get Scrap is to steal it from other people. Yes, you will need to be good at PVP or you can always take people by surprise. All these areas are very easy to get Scrap in, but you do have to be careful to always watch the areas you go to.
There could be someone waiting for you to finish looting an area and they can kill you and take everything you found. If you want to turn the tide, find a good looting spot and wait for someone to come and loot it. It is fun to do and you will get a ton of stuff out of it.
5. Buy it from shops
The fifth and final way to get Scrap is to buy it from shops around the game world. There are many NPC shops set up around certain Monuments, and there are also many player-controlled shops for you to buy from.
For the player shops, just make sure there is not someone around to kill you and take everything you have. If the shop has a turret with a green laser, you will know that you are safe, unless you fire your weapon.