Tech Trash
Salvaged electronics used to craft C4, targeting computers and high-tier electrical items. Recyclable into scrap and HQM.
How to Get Tech Trash in Rust
Tech Trash isn't farmed or crafted — it's loot-only, found in crates, and produced by recycling electronic items. There's no gathering node or animal source at all.
Recycling is the deliberate source
Targeting Computer Stations, laptops, and other electronic-looking items all break down into Tech Trash at a recycler, alongside scrap and HQM. If you're clearing out a monument's loot and see anything that looks like a computer or electronics, it's worth grabbing purely to recycle.
Where to find it directly
It also spawns as loot in crates around monuments and from recyclers themselves — checking a recycler's own inventory before you use it can turn up Tech Trash someone else left behind, which is free.
What it's actually for
Tech Trash is a required ingredient in C4, targeting computers and most of the higher-tier electrical items, which is exactly why it's worth stockpiling before a raid rather than searching for it under time pressure.
Used to craft
18 items are crafted with this.
Recycling
 Scrap | ×20 |
 High Quality Metal | ×1 |
Radtown recyclers (found in monuments) give more than the safe-zone recyclers at Outpost and Bandit Camp. A percentage next to a yield is the chance of receiving it.
Looted From
Related guides
What to recycle in Rust for scrap, HQM, and components, what to never feed the recycler, and the always-recycle list every player should memorize.
Where tech trash drops in Rust — real crate chances from the game files — what it crafts (C4, turrets, CCTV), and when to recycle it instead.