Tech Trash in Rust: How to Get It & What It's For

Tech trash is loot, not a craft. You farm it from military and elite crates, and the decision that actually matters is what you do with each piece: hold it for C4 and turrets, or recycle it for 20 scrap + 10 high quality metal. Both answers are right at different points in a wipe, and this guide gives you the numbers to pick.

Tech trash is salvaged electronics, and it gates the electronic end of the game. From the game files, the recipes that eat it:

That first row is why raiders hoard it: every single C4 is 2 tech trash, so a raid's worth of boom is a stack of the stuff. One note on crafting it yourself — the current game files (v2631.286.1) do contain a Tech Trash recipe (2 High Quality Metal + 50 Scrap at a Level 3 Workbench), but it's flagged as not player-craftable in our dump, so don't plan your supply around the craft menu. The CCTV Camera and Targeting Computer recipes in the table carry the same not-player-craftable flag in the current dump, which means those two are loot items in practice too — budget your tech trash for the rows you can actually press craft on. Plan around crates.

Where tech trash drops

Straight from the same game files, the containers that pay out:

• chevron_rightLocked Crate — 39.3% chance of 2–4. The best per-crate odds, behind a 15-minute hack.
• chevron_rightBradley APC — 25% chance of 10 per crate. The densest single hit in the game; Bradley drops multiple crates when it dies.
• chevron_rightElite Crate — 20.1% chance of 2.
• chevron_rightMilitary Crate — 16.7% chance of 2.
• chevron_rightAirdrop — 16% chance of 4.

The everyday farm is military and elite crates: Launch Site, Military Tunnels, and Oil Rig are stacked with both, and the same crates drop the weapon bodies and HQM you want anyway. The scrap farming routes double as tech trash routes — it's the same monuments, the same loop.

Keep it or recycle it?

Tech trash recycles into 20 scrap and 10 high quality metal — per piece, one of the best returns in the game, which is why the recycling guide puts it on the always-recycle list. But "always" has an asterisk, and it's the table above.

My rule: count your boom first. If there's any chance you're raiding this wipe, every 2 tech trash you recycle is a C4 you can't craft, and no amount of scrap feels good when you're one charge short at someone's loot room. Early wipe, before Workbench Level 3 exists, recycle freely — you can't craft C4 yet and the 20 scrap accelerates your tech tree. Late wipe with a T3 and explosives researched, tech trash is boom and turrets, and recycling it is burning raid potential for pocket change. Check yields for everything else in your box on the recycle chart and run it through a recycler on the way out of the monument.

Fastest route verdict

Kill Bradley if you can, farm mil/elite crates if you can't. A Bradley kill's crates at 25% for 10 apiece out-supplies an entire evening of crate runs, but it needs gear and know-how. For everyone else: loop the military and elite crate spawns at Launch, Military Tunnels, and the rigs, and treat every Locked Crate hack as a 39.3% ticket to 2–4 more. Then spend it deliberately — 2 per C4 adds up fast, and the craft calculator will tell you exactly how many crates stand between you and your raid.