Chapter 04 · E-Waste RecyclerFM 93-07

E-Waste Recycler

You stripped circuit boards and copper out of last decade’s electronics all day, every day. The apocalypse only removed the middleman.

A recycling bench piled with circuit boards, copper wire, and dead monitors. — Plate III-C. — Boards, copper, bins. The garnish is in the guts.

Spec	Issued
Creation cost	−6
Effective start	Salvage 3 · Electricity 1 · Maintenance 1 · Resourceful
Granted trait	Resourceful (purchasable 6) — better odds of a bonus component on any salvage job, and Salvage XP. The only salvage trait with a live code path on the roll.
Granted recipes	None. Salvage has no learn-gate. SkillRequired is the only lock.
XP source	Crafting in the Salvage tab, and nowhere else. Books multiply. They do not start the meter.

Who this is for

The picker who wants to be load-bearing. You pay Sysop money for a quieter job: every workshop in the Network is hungry for parts you pull out of appliances, clocks, cameras, engines and plastic the ordinary salvage never bothered with. Electricity 1 is why teardown work compounds instead of sitting in one column. If you just wanted to crush cans, the Scrapper is two points cheaper.

// FROM THE FILES — US-29 DUMP

The county dump used to pay by the pound for boards. Nobody is paying. The boards are still there, and so are the TVs that still hum if you plug them in. Take the live ones. The dead were never the job in this county.

How to play it

Crush cans on day one. Crush Aluminum Cans is ungated. Empty pop cans are everywhere and the county never had a use for them. That is your first Salvage work. Flatten Tin Cans opens at 1; you spawn at 3, so both floors are already under you.
Loot like a shopping list, not a magpie. Working TVs and radios — you dismantle the live ones; this county never left you a pile of “already broken” sets. Microwaves, toasters, clocks, cameras, instruments, engine parts, scrap plastic, copper scrap, mail and paperwork. Leave the flashlights and CD players to ordinary Electricity dismantles; this skill does not re-teach those.
Run the teardowns you already sit on. At Salvage 3: strip copper wiring, instrument pickups, sort scrap metal, break down copper scrap, press paper sheets. Harvest Appliance Parts is only 2. You are already in the guts of the tree.
Sell the garnish, keep the rare guts. Resourceful sometimes adds a bonus component. Timing circuits, optics, pickups — that is Computers and Performance money. Nails and metal are settlement money. Do not eat the timing circuit because you need a screw.
Climb the last three rungs on purpose. Salvage 4–6 is engine parts, recovered copper, chemical solvent, improvised glue. Solvent and glue feed Chemistry and repairs. You are the chemist’s dirty predecessor.
Live next to a stall. A bag of sorted metal is not wealth until a Shopkeeper lists it. Plant yourself in a claim or marry one. Offline, your only product is the pile in the hall.

The Salvage ladder (the parts that matter)

Skill	Open this
0–1	Crush aluminum cans; flatten tin; shred scrap plastic; roll paper logs
2	Harvest appliance parts; reclaim nails; pulp scrap paper
3	Strip copper; instrument pickups; sort metal; copper scrap; press paper — you spawn here
4	Timing circuits; engine parts; recover copper wire
5–6	Optics package; distill solvent; improvised glue

Caution Crafting is the only Salvage XP. If you only loot and never sit at the tab, you stay 3 forever and Resourceful is a coin flip on recipes you already know. Schedule teardown like a job, not a hobby.

Pair with Sysop and Industrial Chemist — they are why the rare parts exist. The Scrapper is your cheaper twin; same salvage depth, no Electrical compounding, no Resourceful. If the group already has you, they do not need a second recycler.