The Scrap Barons are a criminal salvage operation of approximately 130 members that controls the industrial scrap trade in Old Harbor and the Shelf. In a city that produces enormous quantities of technological waste — broken augmentations, decommissioned drones, obsolete hardware, industrial machinery — the Barons have built an empire on the refuse. They control scrapyards, operate salvage crews that strip abandoned structures, and run a processing operation that extracts valuable materials from technological waste for resale.

The Barons' operation is criminal primarily because the waste they salvage often belongs to corponations that consider it proprietary even after disposal, and because the materials they extract include controlled substances — rare earth elements, military-grade composites, and augmentation components that are regulated regardless of their condition. The Barons also maintain a side business in weapons fabrication: their metalworking facilities and access to military-surplus components allow them to manufacture improvised weapons that are crude by corporate standards but effective and cheap, arming a significant portion of the Shelf's criminal ecosystem.

The environmental consequences of the Barons' operations are significant — their processing methods produce toxic runoff that contaminates the already-compromised waterways around Old Harbor. The Green Meridian Collective has targeted them repeatedly. The Barons don't care. Profit and survival take priority over water quality when you live at the bottom of the economic ladder.