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Found some fluorescent light ballasts and took off the cover to find a heavy, crowded board in covered in a hard, tar-like coating.

I know I could scrap the ballast whole locally but I live in an area where the scrap yards are dishonest and ignorant so I try to stay away. (For example, I had a scrap yard worker hand back the blue copper I gave him because "there ain't no such thing as blue copper". I had him take a grinder to it and it blew his mind).

Anyways, what are we looking at here in the eyes of Boardsort? Lowgrade is my guess

Thr little guy is a resistor. Boardsort doesn't want them loose. Locally you'd get a cbm 1 or 2 rate. A good pair of shears or robogrips you can squeeze or cut the back from the shell from the back for a plate of silver brass or silver copper (boardsort buys that) some copper and plastic &steel or IF.

The boards are low grade and you're better off leaving the tar on and selling as a ballast.

The "wires" are insulated copper, not wire rate, To most places. or strip them for clean bare bright.
Finally look for a silver or grey color metal in one of those wires, some ballasts have a palladium grounding wire. Especially in neon/florescent commercial lamps. An alloy wire worth around $80/lb.