Worthless items and surprising keepers in Project Zomboid

Every item has a weight, and your character can only move freely under a carry limit set mostly by Strength. Go over it and you slow down, lose endurance and, in Build 42, risk muscle strain in the back and torso. The carry weight guide covers the stages in detail.

Small junk rarely breaks your limit on its own. The problem is that it fills the space you need for food, water and medical supplies on the way home, and it clutters the inventory list when you are trying to find a bandage in a hurry. A good looting habit is to ask one question before you pick something up: what will I actually do with this?

These are the items that catch new players most often. Weights are from the pzfans item database for Build 42.

Money is not totally worthless: it is tagged as fire fuel and tinder, so a stack can start a campfire. A sheet of newspaper or a magazine you have already read does the same job, though, so there is no reason to hoard cash. For decorating a finished base, see the decorating guide.

In Build 41 jewelry had no use at all. Build 42 added a scrap step. According to one detailed fan guide, plain gold and silver rings, earrings, necklaces and chains scrap into one gold or silver fragment each, and gem pieces can give one or two gemstones (one source). You need a small hand tool such as pliers, a small hacksaw or metal snips, and the tool is not used up.

The same guide says ten fragments or coins plus one piece of charcoal forge a gold or silver sheet at a primitive forge, with Blacksmithing level 1, a hammer and tongs. Gold and silver coins weigh 0.05 each and scrap into two fragments (one source).

Opinion Jewelry weighs about 0.1 per piece, so a handful costs little. Grab gold and silver if you plan to take up blacksmithing. Otherwise leave it: precious metal sheets are a niche material, and a dozen rings will not feed you.

Some of the most useful finds look like household clutter.

Players also report that forks and spoons can be melted down for iron in Build 42 metalworking. That claim comes from forum posts, so check it in your own game before hauling cutlery home. For rags, bandages and the rest of the healing chain, see first aid; for water storage, see water.

• Does a recipe or action use it? If no crafting menu, build menu or right-click action takes it, it is decoration.
• Is it light for what it does? A 0.01 paperclip that becomes a fishing rod part is a good deal. A heavy lamp that only looks nice is not.
• Can you get it later? Decor and trophies do not spoil and rarely vanish. Food and medicine run out first, so take those now and come back for the rest.
• Will you carry it home today? Drop it in a stash box instead of hauling it around all day.

Opinion A good first-week bag holds food, water, medical supplies, one spare weapon and a few tools. Everything else can wait for a vehicle. The loot locations page shows where the useful items tend to spawn, and the storage guide covers sorting it once you get it home.

Cash is useless now because there is no one to trade with. NPCs and trading are planned for a later build, not Build 42, and The Indie Stone has not said how currency would work if they arrive. See the NPC roadmap for what has been announced.

Opinion Some players stash a little money and jewelry for roleplay or in case a future update gives it a use. That is harmless as long as it lives in a base container and not in your backpack.